Drivers Diaries
With updates on Rob’s VW camper, Iain’s RSP Mini, Will’s Morris Minor van, and Paul Wager introduces an XR3i.
I’ve always prided myself on successfully protecting my VW Camper from major corrosion by keeping on top of rust-proofing and frequently spraying cavity wax inside the chassis rails, sills and other concealed areas, along with applying a liberal coating of underseal on the underside of the floors and inside the wheelarches. However, it’s perhaps only a matter of time before the dreaded iron oxide wins, and over the last decade I’ve occasionally discovered a small hole, which invariably grows once I start to prod at it with a blunt screwdriver. So I’d like to briefly bring you up to date with all the welding repairs that have been conducted over the last decade, to help demonstrate the importance of routine rust-proofing and inspecting a vehicle for corrosion to catch it before it becomes potentially terminal.
When I bought my VW in 2010, it was seemingly solid, but one of the first jobs was to scrape off all the old, brittle underseal from inside the wheelarches and the underside to see if it really was rot-free. Happily it was... well, pretty much – with the exception of a hole in one of the rear wheelarches and a few along the front edge of the bodywork, I couldn’t find anything else, not even a rusty outer wheelarch, outrigger or floor section. (Herbie Hospital, who sold me the VW, had already replaced the battery box and fitted a repair panel below the windscreen.)
Feeling lucky, I didn’t hesitate to apply fresh underseal to the exposed metalwork, which still bore its original yellow German Bundespost paintwork (my VW was originally a German Post Office microbus). I also sprayed Waxoyl inside the chassis rails, sills and doors, and I had the exterior resprayed in its current colour back in 2011.
Inevitably, corrosion has bubbled through since then, so repairs have been necessary. Sometimes I’ve escaped with a small patch, such as the rear outer arches and the rear quarters. At other times, it has been more sensible to repair entire sections, such as the nearside front wheelarch, which is available as a complete outer and inner repair section.
Similarly, the nearside door bottom needed a full repair section. The most recent repair was a full inner and outer offside sill (below the sliding door on my LHD VW). The old sill looked home-made, so it’s now the correct shape.
The larger repair sections such as the aforementioned offside sill and nearside front wheelarch didn’t look that bad, but going on advice from Richard at Herbie Hospital, it wasn’t worth assuming all would be OK inside once the exterior had been cut away. And Richard was correct, as while the exterior metalwork was reasonably solid and wax had been injected inside, that couldn’t turn the existing corrosion back to solid metal.
On the plus side, the structure of the vehicle hadn’t been affected, so we’d caught the rot in time.
I’ve been tempted to learn to MIG weld for many years, but once I see someone such as Richard make or trim a repair panel, fit it, grind back the welds and have it painted to look as though nothing has ever needed repairing, I realise I need years of practice to get to his standard. That doesn’t mean to say I won’t learn to MIG weld, but I’ll always appreciate my limitations.
At present, I’m confident there are no more major rotspots on my VW, but I have been wondering whether the old Eberspächer heating system mounted on the underside should be removed to check the one remaining area of the floor. I’ve never used this petrol-fired heating system, which uses its own ignition coil, spark plug and fuel supply from the petrol tank. It’s supposedly very efficient at warming the interior, and initially uses the air blown by the engine fan and routed over the exhaust manifolds, before this is further warmed up and then blown into several areas of the interior.
Realising I was probably never going to use or need the Eberspächer heater, or any form of blown heating, I decided it was time to remove the entire system, save some weight and finish off my rustproofing. My garage inspection pit came in useful, as I could venture underneath and remove the heavy heater, block off the fuel pipe and take all the extra heater hoses and pipes out. Plus, I bought a couple of slimmer J-shaped exhaust manifolds to replace the bulkier and heavier heat exchangers.
Removal of all the old components and the fitting of the slimmer exhaust manifolds took roughly a day to complete, along with some additional rust-proofing. I discovered the fuel hose to the heater was perished and close to leaking. This gave me the opportunity to change a much larger section of the fuel hose because I no longer needed a junction off to the heater, so I repositioned the inline fuel filter underneath the vehicle (it had previously been inside the engine bay).
I’m relieved to have shed some weight from the vehicle and reduced the risk of a fire. Plus, I’m hoping I’m now a little more in control of the rust-proofing, although I don’t think I’ll ever stop looking for bubbling paintwork.