What a week and a half its been

Wow, I have neglected my blogging. Much has happened in the world of Vanagon. When I last posted I was planning to sound deaden the driver's door and the cab area. To do that correctly I had to remove pretty much the entire interior and that was when things got complicated...

Here is me getting started:





I took the fridge out really easily which gave me lots of confidence:





After the fridge came out I went ahead and removed the rest of the sink/stove cabinent. It wasn't exactly difficult but it did take a bit to deal with the gas pipes, electrical wiring, etc.





Now if I was smart I would have stopped here and lived in blissful ignorance. Instead I decided to go ahead and remove the rest just to see how bad the seam rust was from the inside. Removing the water tank and its cabinent was a pretty serious pain. Here's a shot of all that out.



Then the moment of truth came. I decided to take out the side panel and remove the floor and here is what I found.





That's right. Horrible, horrible rust! Oh no!





So now everything changes. That rust looks just too bad to ignore. I'm going to have to do something about it. The trouble is figuring out what to do. That rust looked a bit bad for the typical grind it out and POR-15 over it kind of job. I decided I was going to have to add some metal. The problem is that I can't weld, don't have a welder, and don't have a place to weld. That makes things difficult. I thought about getting a few estimates on doing the job, and I still might, but I really wanted to figure out some way that I could take care of this myself.

I started asking around to see if anyone I knew happened to know how to weld or had a welder. I found out that a good buddy of mine who builds furniture happens to have a welder and all the gear needed to use it - plus a place to actually weld in. The only problem is that he doesn't know how to weld either but has been looking for a project to learn on. That's where me and my van come in. The plan is to spend some time researching welding and then we'll get together a time or do and try some practice welds. Meanwhile, I'll order a replacement panel and then when we feel good about things we'll just give it a go. Who knows how good of a job we could possibly do but I feel like trying it. I figure worst case I'll have to pay a shop to bail me out and I wouldn't be all that much worse off than I was to start with.