More work on Big Blue - Getting the floor ready...

Yesterday started with much of the same as Monday. After a trip to the car wash to vacuum out the crap that I finished with Monday night, I went back to sanding. I stopped into the hardware store and picked up this attachment for my drill, which worked well;

The rust-removing-watch-your-fingers-machine.

Here is the result:

40-year old German steel.

So after another trip to the car wash and a quick rub down with mineral spirits, the floor was ready to go.

Big Blue enjoying the sun.

First was plugging the old drain hole with some waterproof, dries-hard-as-a-rock plumber's putty. Not sure how it will work but the guy at the hardware store said he loved it for things like this, so I thought I'd try it.

Here's what it looked like...

Inside.

Underneath.

An effort to control the spray...


And the start of the application...



I stopped where it is above since I was running out of daylight and wanted to make sure everything would dry before the dew set in.

With some time on my hands, I decided to take out the old radio (which doesn't work). I've had a new radio to put in for months but need to complete the new wood for the doors (thus, new speakers). I should have waited. It became a huge deal and I was soon in the dark halfway through the job.

I have a hard time taking things apart that don't have obvious screws and bolts. A few weeks back, I was trying to take the fans out of an old laptop we were throwing away for my father-in-laws beer brewing, and I destroyed the keyboard before I figured out how to remove it. You can tell by the pile below that I had a similar problem with the radio...

The 1980's-style cassette player is toast.

I was happy to see very little rust back there...

I had to remove the glove box to get the radio out.

...but was unhappy to see the nest of wires. Oh, man....

This should be fun.

Note the very small amount of rust. This is under Big Blue's troubled windshield.

Today, more of the same. I want to finish up the primer and see how far I can get on getting the floor in.

Work on Big Blue...

I have the week off of work this week, so now that we are moved into our new place, I turned my attention to Big Blue. Yesterday, I took the old floor out to get it ready to put a new floor in. I was able to do this while leaving the bench seat and closet in, although I will be taking those out as well before this is all over.

I was tempted for a moment to leave the bottom layer of wood in but ended up taking it out and I was glad I did - there is some rust under there that needs some attention. I spent the rest of the day working on getting the floor cleaned and rust free and will continue today. I hope to have it primed by tonight. I'm going to leave it in primer for now and put the new floor in over the top of it.

Here are some pictures of the work:

Starting point (the other seat and fridge were removed in September).

First: removed the metal "sashes" at the sliding door and the walk-through between the front seats.

The walk-through....

...which had its fill of 40 years of crap.

Next, the floor came out. I found there were 2 layers of floor.

The floor out. I had to prop it up and cut it in the corner by the closet.

Second layer of floor.

It's amazing how bad the work was on cutting through the floor and metal. These are the holes for the refrigerator power and drainage.

I was glad to see that the windows hadn't caused rust below them. I wasn't shocked to see rust where the hole had been cut for the water tank behind the driver's seat (see the end of this post for pictures of the old water tank).

The source of the dirt and moisture for the rust? This is where the old water tank drained.

So it was off to the car wash to use the vacuum to get all the crap out that I had shaken up...


Once back home, I cleaned the entire floor so I could see where the rust was. Then used steel wool over the entire floor. After that, I used a wire brush attachment on my drill to go at the big stuff (which I wore down to almost nothing), followed up with a smaller attachment on the Dremel to get more of the rust (which I wore down to nothing).

Small amount of rust...

Getting bigger...

Yikes!

After burning through 3 Dremel attachments, I finally ran out of wire brushes that would do the work. I just have a little more to get and then should be ready to tape and prime it.

Today, I need to take it back to the car wash and vacuum again, then do a bit more work on the rust and I should be good to go.

Just a note, this new "workshop" area of out new place rocks. The picture below is from inside the workshop looking out through the sliding door at Big Blue (who is safely under cover from rain). It's making this work really fun.

Big Blue in the new work area.

1965 Small World Introductory Issue

Another "Introductory Issue" of Small World magazine (click here for a post on one from an earlier blog). This one was pretty cool as it included a set of stickers to remind you of your tire pressure and the shift pattern of your new VW.

It came with a sticker sheet to put in your VW.