Monthly Archives: May 2016

First welding experiences!

I could manage to buy a cheap welding helmet with automated darkening feature! I already owned a cheap welding electrodes setup an therefore was allowed to take some training welding today:

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First welding experiences – top

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First welding experiences – bottom

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First welding experiences – top 3

This small welding worms are really not worth mentioning in a welding context, but for me, this is a real achievment of working with metal. With that ability I’ll soon be able to fix the sill issue on the front left door πŸ™‚

VW T4 Project – Interior construction – Realization

The step after planning is realization, so I went to the local home improvement store and bought some sawing rough woodΒ  at 3,69 € per meter. I additionally required several M10 screws at 90mm length for assembling the wood construction directly to the ground floor of the VW T4.

Thanks to my going-to-be-brother-in-law for all the help during the wood construction progress! I am totally surprised by the high level of functionality and very low cost for the interior simplyΒ  by combining the given circumstances.

I have already spent two nights inside and do not miss any functionality of theΒ  bed and couch at all, it’s way better than I could imagine πŸ™‚

VW T4 Project – Interior construction – Planning Stage

Usually it is really helpful to take a decent time to plan the interior design, but due to my available going-to-be-brother-in-law
for one day, I had to do this at night during my well deserved sleeping time. Taking the measures from the carpet I came to this Sketchup model:

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VW T4 Project – Interior construction – beddinge as a couch, having 5 cm left as a 1,95 cm guy while sitting

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VW T4 Project – Interior construction – right side view – top rectangle is roof

Fortunately at this time I had a left over sofa-bed from IKEA called Beddinge around, which I would like to include into my interior design. It is foldable and usable as a couch and therefore perfect as a the heart of my low cost campervan VW T4:

It is possible to pull the seating area and get an full 140 by 200 cm bed by that:

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VW T4 Project – Interior construction – front right view

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VW T4 Project – Interior construction – back right view

VW T4 Project – War against Rust – Battle VI – Interioir

As presented in a previous post, my beloved Vw T4 has some Issues with rust on the interior floor. For some reasons I will explain soon, I only got one night to solve these and handle all spots below the carpet as good as possible.

This is where we have to start:

VW T4 Project – Interior construction - Removal of all Seats - looks like an area needs to be treated

VW T4 Project – Interior construction – Removal of all Seats – looks like an area needs to be treated

I forgot to take the right amount of progress pictures but some can be shown here:

it is really time to learn to weld and to plan the interior functional design.

VW T4 Project – Interior construction – Removal of all Seats and carpets

I currently do not know anything about the status of my VW T4 interior. Is there rust? Do I need to fix anything before starting to convert the interior to fit the local camper regulations?

Only one way to find out, therefore I started by removing the seats:

So far, so good, but the real trouble might be under the carpet:

in conclusion, this needs to be handled before it means any further trouble.

VW T4 Project – War against Rust – Battle V – Sill Part One

There was a small little hole in the sill on the front left side, but after inspecting it a little further the small little hole reveals as a dirt and rust filled water holding mess. I drilled a hole below the sill for the water to drain off, an sawed the hole into an rectangular shape:

I’ll need to learn welding of some sorts to fix that hole in the future. I am currently not owing a welding helmet, I would like to get an automatically darkening one, but these are usually above 100€ a piece. Hopefully I’ll find a cheaper solution to that.

VW T4 Project – War against Rust – Battle I – temporary lost

I am a bit behind my reporting schedule, but several things have happened the past days. I’ll post them in chronological order.Β  First of all the rust on the fuel tank cap is back. I really should have used zinc and a bit more sanding on it:

I am going to use a different rust converter on it, it might help when it arrives: It is called owatrol rust converter.

VW T4 Project – War against Rust – Battle IV: Roof

Still not easy finding before pictures, but examining the archives, i found this litte landscape of rust:

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Maybe not looking that bad, but still, this is the number one location for rust on T4s – causing water flooding everywhere it can cause damage inside … Therefore it totally earned my attention in the war of rust battle IV πŸ™‚

Clearly, this is not a professional paint job. Also it seems the white of the roof of the VW T4 is slightly brighter by age or by default, but still – it prevents one of the most vulnerable spots of rust and invading rain water.Β  Sadly on some spots I’ve painted the rubber seal white, which left me no choice but to paint the whole seal a bit more white than I’d have retrospectively. Anyways, the VW T4 looks a lot more worthy than before and hopefully will not develop rust issues on the handled spots soon..

VW T4 Project – War against Rust – Battle IV: Roof - total final result

VW T4 Project – War against Rust – Battle IV: Roof – total final result

There are two more areas to treat soon which I have been avoiding due to the required experience: sill and back right wheel case hole. I am really looking forward to solve this πŸ™‚

VW T4 Project – War against Rust – Battle III: left front area

Unfortunately I forgot to take real before pictures… but still the war against rust is still something really exhausting. The more I circle around the car, the more I find spots that are worth being treated against rust and future conservation. Still collecting experience my quality of removal improves every time, currently I am using a automated wire brush for most rust removal. After that I apply rust removal followed by zinc spray and undercoat before I apply several layers of color matching paint.

Still that progress leaves some transition between old and new paint, but I’ll hopefully improve that soon by gaining experience. Until then, I’ll try some polishing and maybe freestyle paint grading πŸ™‚

VW T4 Project – War against Rust – Battle II: trunk

It’s getting impossible to document all rust removal progress, but just to keep the blogging alive, here are some more pictures of the battle against rust on my T4.

After a few more hours of sticker removal and cheap polish, the result is amazing:

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VW T4 Project – War against Rust – Battle II: trunk – back after treatment and polish