I previously added backing reinforcements and filled some cracks in the body work: Bean Dips and SteelStiks SteelStiks Part 2 I used too much SteelStik and left a blobby mess, thinking I could just file it down smooth. After an hour with a file, I gave up on it and just spraye...
In the previous post, I found a nasty rust hole in the heater channel/frame in front of the rear fender on the passenger side. Through that hole in the side, I could also see the ground underneath, so there is more work to do under there. Today, I'm going to (not) repair the r...
In the previous post, I got started trying to replace the running boards, with only moderate success. It was a complete failure at replacing the actual running board. But, I was able to get all of the broken body bolts drilled out, tapped, and replaced. The hardware that came...
One of the first things I noticed when checking out this car before I bought it was the running boards were rusty and made crunching sounds when I pressed on them. I recently bought a new pair of running boards from jbugs (jbugs link). I started on the driver side. Removing th...
A couple of evenings ago, I replaced the front hood seal. That process went so well, I decided to replace the rear deck lid seal as well. As with the front hood seal, I have had the new seal laying around since I purchased the car. After reading posts on the samba, I was scare...
Back out in the car, it's time to mount this monstrosity and try to put the end result into perspective. It's hard to tell how it looks when it's on its own. You need to see it in context. So, off we go. First, I mounted those long bolts in the corners. I put all of the knobs...
As I mentioned previously, the new dash pad appears to be very high quality, but at a glance, you can see it's not an exact match to the old one. When I got started installing it today, it became very apparent this was not going to be plug and play. First, I had to cut off a b...
I had such good luck with the patches in the fenders last time, I decided to see how it would work on the outside. I couldn't get it as thin as I would have liked, but I knew I would be filing and sanding it down anyway. Since a little goes a long way with this stuff, I rolled...
Both rear fenders have cracks from old damage. I bought a tube of JB Weld SteelStik (Amazon link), which is steel reinforced epoxy putty. When dried, it is hard enough to drill and tap, so I figured it would work well to reinforce the back side of the fenders, behind the crack...
After the first couple of coats of primer and paint went down, there was a lot of texture to the paint. Mainly over-spray dust. I tried going over it first with the blue Scotch-Brite pad, which is the one safe for non-stick pans. That took some dust off, but not the texture. I...