Pearl white coupe revival

[Antsa]

I think the best way of cleaning the pitted rust areas is sandblasting them. There are these cheap sand blasters that suck the sand directly from from a bag. They are cheap to buy and quite good for small jobs. I have used this for small rusted areas.

I don't have experience in rust converters and how they do their job, but with blasting you should be able to get all back to bare metal and have solid base for paint. Wire wheeling tends to leave rust in the pits.

For the bare metal surfaces I would go for automotive etch primer or epoxy followed by a sanding primer.

Great thread by the way, keep the updates coming

[ottawa coupe]

Slight change in plan according to by buddy who actually knows how to paint a car in that i will not be painting the bay anytime soon. his advice is to get everything in primer before i start blocking anything. his recommendation is to get the bay to 300 and then prime it. i am going to add POR15 in the bare metal spots before priming.

so slowly started by emptying the bay. it's gonna be a while sanding i think.... sooooo many nooks n crannies to get.

20240701_163224[1].jpg

one question i have for prep is for areas like this:

20240702_171506[1].jpg

the metal is pitted but solid. what i was thinking i should do is get it all visible, put some converter on it, POR it and then sand/fill as needed and then prime it.

seem about right?

[ottawa coupe]

of course that fought WAY more than it should (the person responsible for the fuel line holders needs to be shot!) but brake and fuel line connections to the bay are made.

20240701_120051[1].jpg

so now that means i get to take it all apart and start cleaning the engine bay up as well as make my nasty welds look a bit better. and then sanding. good god the sanding.....

[ottawa coupe]

Exhaust is sorted, at least for the moment. Once i confirm the ears of the flange don't interfere on the car and i sort out the support to the trans. I guess ideally i'd want to find trans brackets from a b5 2.8 5 speed??

20240630_092922[1].jpg

i need to make the last connections for fuel and brake systems in the engine bay then it's mostly tidying up the shell. but it is 92% humidity at the moment so work is done in short bursts, otherwise the car will rust again due to my own sweat lol.

on the fence about the stud welder. amazon's best price is ~$250. but i guess that's a lot cheaper than getting 2 areas pulled/poked straight at a shop?? i also found a cheap set of actual b5 avus wheels locally. seller is on vacation for 2 weeks now though. not the end of the world that i bought the current set of wheels as i needed another set of 5x112 winter storage rollers anyways.

the plan for the rest of the summer is to clean up the engine bay and at least prime it. with a bit of luck i'll do a (better than i did on the test fender!) rattlecan paintjob in the bay and door jambs to get them done. if i succeed in that then the winter can be dedicated 100% to priming/blocking the body and starting reassembly of stuff not affected by an external paint job. ideally i would be able to at least start the car late winter.

next summer i can drive it?!?!

the biggest open questions at this point are seats (don't have any) and i need a front brake solution (again, don't have any...sorta important for the test drive lol).

[ottawa coupe]

So, landscape project stopped for now as it keeps raining and the skidsteer i rented kept sinking in the soup....

Got back on to the coupe this afternoon. Gutted airbag is sorted and back into the dash

20240627_173134.jpg

gotta fix up the exhaust and one part of the body and the welder SHOULD be put away for good. Started to attempt banging the bad quarter out. It's now LESS concave that it was. Gonna see what amazon has for stud welders i think. If i work on patience, maybe i'll get it to the point of needing only a mm or so of filler instead of the 10 that was there.

[ottawa coupe]

https://youtu.be/gzXpvde0zUk?si=v2n5ecf2LM6G-Gdo

and i cleaned the other part up more and got the right number off of it. 078 not 378. it's a heatshield for the sensor on the flywheel.

mystery solved, thanks

[Tractor Dave]

Looking at your pic thats 845h. Comes up as starter harness.

[ottawa coupe]

had to resize the pics from my phone as they would not upload. this is what i've got. and yet for some reason, one refuses to upload..... 20240622_130801.jpg

20240622_120223.jpg 20240622_130752.jpg

[Tractor Dave]

8a0971846a is an abs wheel sensor.
Take a pic of the other number on your phone and then zoom in on the pic to check the number.

[ottawa coupe]

Getting back at it lightly and clearing off the shelf and getting things on to the engine and i have offically done it. Does anyone have access to an illustrated parts list that is searchable by part numbers?

i've got part numbers 378 905 493 and 8a0 971 846 h and i don't know where they came from.... shockingly google has no response for either parts.

Thanks

[ottawa coupe]

It SHOULD . I kept it for this purpose as it is also amore robust piece than the coupe carpet. There may be a little difference aro7nd the back corners but i would be surprise of the trim cards didn't cover it up. It will be many months before i can confirm these assumptions tho.

[Alex20v]

Hey, you're right, they aren't avus... pretty damned close though. Same size and offset. Might make it easier to get centers for them lol. It was such a good deal and so close i didn't look too close. Still, they look decent to me. Maybe i'll stumble across the proper avus ones in the future....

At any rate, been a productive coupla days...

20240422_123934.jpg 20240422_123928.jpg
cabrio is down to the wiring now. Gotta take a breath and label/group the main branches together so it doesn't become a COMPLETE mess upon removal. I've then got a few bits of metal to remove and it's off to the crusher.

Do you have all the parts from this cabrio there?
I always want to know, if the carpet from cabrio does fit to the coupe
Can you check this please?

ty

[Tractor Dave]

Oh no. The grinder is the most dangerous tool in the workshop. I chopped a chunk out of my finger a couple of weeks back. Exactly the same spot I chopped about a year ago. I've been using the fast healing cream made by elastoplast, it really works! However, I must take more care in the future.

[ottawa coupe]

So, the rear diff got sorted. My hope is that the seal died while sitting and NOT while last on the road, thus killing the r&p. Time will tell there i guess...i am sure it's outta spec but given the options available for repair.... send it???

Slowly putting the engine back together. Slow will be the operative word for a while. My 47 year streak of not getting hurt enough for the hospital has ended thanks to my angle grinder.... was lookin a tendons in my hand for a minute....

Managed to get the manifold, ps pump and coil back on today but i must take it easy as i made my stitches angry doing so.....

I should be back to 100% in a week or so at which point i hope to fix the exhaust manifolds for good and have the engine ready on the stand. Once that is done, there will be no more excuses to delay the wonderful task of bodywork.....

[ottawa coupe]

Hooks are pulling through it...
20240610_161303.jpg

Only thing i can think of now is fire to melt the rubber.... not like residual gear oil is flammable tho right???

Gonna see about gripping the edges with vicegrips and pulling on those.

Never encountered this kind of nonsense before!!!

Edit: victory is mine....had to punch it inwards which i guess broke whatever was stuck and with the last bit that wasn't torn up, managed to pull it out... what an unexpected battle....