Jivermo wrote:there is work to be done.
Oh there was . . . don't we all start so nice and organized-like?
Yeah, so there's the fresh cup of coffee before the addition of a sedimentary layer of rust particulates, bondo dust, primer, and paint accumulated in the bottom over the next two days, there's the cactus pushing its blooms before being subjected to the unbelievable indignities of fumes and light into the night and one Serious Hurricane of Sears Shop Vac to knock down the layer of pink dust:
. . . and the kids played on this bucolic farm:
Farmer Jeff, the German Hill-Billy, spun his Ford tractor around and went to deepen a trench:
I applied a center mark on the windshield before pulling to better CENTER the new windshield seal seam:
Surrounded by various Vanagons, I set to work cutting out my first seal, never done did that before, but this original VW/Audi windshield has a bad pock and some nasty scratches (from the painter/body guy losing it with his mat knife) and I did not want to so much as push it out:
Lifted the windshield out with nary a push hardly really, and look at this, look at this:
Look at THIS! We all saw a nice enough looking car when I bought it! Who would have thought to go tearing into it? It looked fine from the outside . . . save for the evidence of shoddy work like sander-damaged windshield washer jets and turn signal lenses with a weird resin drips and sander damage and the painted over plastic air intake mesh screen:
What horrific secret destruction . . . this repair looked like it was trying to cause problems. A fiberglass dam! :
THis painter/body guy from hell had decided to use fiberglass on a NEW NOSE PANEL for reasons I may never never glean, but it served to cover over the bottom of the windshield seal lip:
Both Farmer Jeff and Friend James watched with their own horror as I attacked the front of the car with my dremel, cutting a groove across the entire beltline. I had to get rid of all fiberglass, get down to good metal, and see the extent of the rust that had indeed made several holes. James and I decided to pull out that inexplicable dent at the right washer jet:
First application of rust catalyzing primer. No mercy. I dribbled that stuff through every millimeter of pinch weld, every hole, and I went to the inside and removed the fresh air ducts, heater ducts, windshield wiper assembly, washer jets, antenna, and hit every bit of rust I could down at the nose panel lower weld line (which was rusting away from all the new holes along the channel, unbelievable destruction for a car that had been sitting in a garage for twenty years):
Look at this hack:
I have to conclude that the person who worked on this car was overworked, underpaid, in a hateful rage.
Well, this job was no longer simple and I told Jeff I would be pretty much right here for a couple of days:
Day two, first layer of hole filling bondo:
Second layer of bondo and first already sanded primer/filler:
Working the primer in between the pinch weld. On the left side of the car, we had THREE layers of metal welded together at the pinch weld, I never could figure out what the hell was going on:
First full primer coat, did I mention that James and I decided to pull out that inexplicable dent at the right washer jet? It made for difficult sanding because the dent went below the perimeter of the repair area:
I fooled with the "exposure" here, to show that we have restored the nice little crescents over the wiper shaft holes, they were globbed with fiberglass originally:
Through it all, I was being treated to a real farm with three eager little piglets, cacophonous guinea hens, a totally friendly dog, background sounds of turkeys, a big rooster, and it was all a wonderful backdrop to a critical repair that I knew would make the car feel better:
Wet primer to see which defects needed to be addressed:
First color coat was around 10:30PM day two. Tricky paint, very translucent, very difficult to get the color right. These were spray cans of VHT Engine Enamel (Chrysler Hemi Orange and Bright Yellow plus a dab of Overpowering Green from a herb container that harkens back to the BobD desert painting marathon of 2010). Well how do you get the color correct when you have to make two batches per pass times four coats? You don't:
Day three, I screwed up and had residual acetone in the suffering paint brush that lifted the four prior coats. What a mess. Had to let it dry, color sand it down, repaint with the above recipe:
Stuck in some new washer jets and windshield wiper grommets as I reassembled under the dashboard.
Jeff helped me install the windshield yesterday after my last color sand/polish/wax.
THANK YOU, JEFF for putting up with my barking "No heaves! protect the gains! push down no inward!"
Looks all right, the seal fits properly with an original windshield:
There's more! but I have to run!
Colin
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