Weekend Plans

This weekend will be another Vanagon focused affair. My plan is to remove the fridge and rear cabinents as well as clean out and sound dampen the front cab. I've got to remove the camping stuff in order to get the rest of the carpet out so I can prep for the new stuff/get the sound proofing in place. This will be my first time behind the dreaded camping equipment and I'm already having rust nightmares. I've got seam rust bubbling under the paint on the driver's side so I'm expecting to be horrified at what I find behind the stove/fridge. The thing that is scarrier than the seam rust is that I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it exactly. I've read everything on the Samba about rust and its still unclear to me what the most practical approach is to dealing with it.

What I know at this point is that the only real way to fix seam rust is to replace the entire panel. If you are lucky then you only have to replace the rocker panel. The problem is that I do not have a shop and I cannot weld. It's probably worth my time to at least get some estimates from a couple of reputable vanagon focused shops in the area but I don't think I can spend much on this job. Then again, if the van is just going to rust away then what is the point of doing all this work on it in the first place.

The smart (read expensive) thing to do would be to get all body work done, all rust ground off, treatment put in place, and a nice paint job. Somehow this would become the dumb option if brought up to my wife. She would say that this is just a fun van, who cares if it has rust. Sadly we would both be correct, only her correctness would keep us from spending several thousand dollars. It would also make serious modifications like Suburu engines kind of pointless. Nobody ever said Vanagon ownership was all rainbows and unicorns.

So I'm going to look at this as the first skirmish of the rust war. I'll remove the camping equipment and I'll sand/grind what I can out of the interior. Then I'll get myself a POR-15 starter kit and apply it to the entire area being sure to photograph extensively. I'll then forget what I saw, finish removing my carpet, and finish installing the sound deadening stuff. I've still got to get my replacement carpet but once I get that then I'll put my camper back together and not think about that rust again until next spring. Then I'll have a year to save up and let the situation digest at which point I'll make a decision to either just leave it be and drive this van into the ground or to fight it. Plus you never know, I might just learn to weld/get a garage to work in during that time. I do think the body stuff is "cool" and I've certainly got a good project perfect to learn on.