123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread

123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - Printable Version

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123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-02-2013

I have a new and lovely rusty 300TD to fix. Just figured id post some pics of the situation that im working on.

(the following photos may be offensive to those in CA, you are warned)

I bought a wagon, and the throttle pedal was wobbly.

looks ok from afar-

closeup looks pretty bad, still local I was hoping-

not local-

decided to peel back the asphalt, uh oh

something weird over here, pushed on it, whoops, it popped out and I can see the tire-

took the fender off, before and after-

closeup of rocker-

next installment later on, removing all the cancer!

source of this rust at least on the firewall and down to the rocker seems to be primarily the hood pocket being jammed at one time or another. Clean your hood pockets out!

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - DeliveryValve - 10-02-2013

(10-02-2013, 12:38 PM)JB3 ....
(the following photos may be offensive to those in CA, you are warned)

....

I had a chuckle at this quote..

But..

I have to admire your quest to save all w123's that are rusty!

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - Simpler=Better - 10-02-2013

Since the fenders are already opened up why not go to a 3" through-fender exhaust? You would weld in a 4" pipe for clearance, and then fab a 3" wrapped pipe from the turbo.

The fancy-pants mercs do it:
[Image: vbpgimage.php?do=full&p=2176&d=1185895190]

[Image: vbpgimage.php?do=full&p=2176&d=1185895190]

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - DeliveryValve - 10-02-2013

(10-02-2013, 12:38 PM)JB3 [/URL]

closeup of rocker-

..... Clean your hood pockets out!

And make sure you pull your wheel well covers off and clean out the inner fender above the rocker. Bunch of leaves and dirt gets caught up there.

.

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-02-2013

(10-02-2013, 02:06 PM)DeliveryValve
(10-02-2013, 12:38 PM)JB3 ....
(the following photos may be offensive to those in CA, you are warned)

....

I had a chuckle at this quote..

But..

I have to admire your quest to save all w123's that are rusty!

lol, I enjoy the structual rust repair, but I absolutely fail at cosmetic repairs. I get to try out my newish welder on this project though!

(10-02-2013, 02:09 PM)Simpler=Better Since the fenders are already opened up why not go to a 3" through-fender exhaust? You would weld in a 4" pipe for clearance, and then fab a 3" wrapped pipe from the turbo.

The fancy-pants mercs do it:

not that I don't love this idea, but I must keep this stock or be murdered. (actual words) Big Grin

Plus the exhaust is in really good shape. Mechanically this car is good

ok, so ive removed enough material that I have to start putting some back before I forget how things worked, or other bits fall off.

here is how the rocker/firewall hole looks with most of the rot taken out-

also there is this hole that must be addressed. looked like this originally-

cut away some of the support, goes way up behind it with paper thin unweldable steel

I will have to remove this entire bit to really get a good patch on that hole, and cut it out properly

heres the plan of action on the firewall vertical hole. Two large patches should take care of most of this area (I may change this plan if I remove that bit right above first)-

For the rocker, once the ordered rocker panel arrives, ill do that in two pieces as well. Actually the firewall piece could be one big piece, but I might be borrowing trouble trying to get that all the way down, easier to weld two bits together

here is why no one will work on these cars. Even on the inside there are huge collections of vinyl in all the worst places

I have a considerable vein of rot that goes all the way back to the previous patch panels. Dont want to cut too much until I start putting stuff back. I can think of no better way to overwhelm myself on this repair project.

Incidentally, this is the first time ive used a sawzall instead of a grinder to remove metal for a rust project like this. This is the way to do it, sawzall doesn't throw sparks or heat things (if its sharp), it doesn't melt the vinyl, and as an added bonus the reciprocating action actually pulls the vinyl away from the steel in a lot of places making it easier to peel back. Im sold. Ill only use a grinder when I absolutely have to now.

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-02-2013

so first few patches in. I forgot I have to rebuild the inner rocker eventually, so the outer vertical patch is a T, not an L.

Have a bunch of chip board left over from some shipping containers, which is making an excellent patch template-

I may rebuild the structure down a little bit, cutting that huge patch into a few pieces before I cut out that corner brace.

Want to get that piece out so I can repair the framish thing with the big vertical hole in it. Ill feel much better with that patched before going into floor pan. Plus removing that corner brace will allow me to cut out some more of the floor pan thats rotten right behind it. This area is the second most complex repair area, so once patched will be a boom towards getting the whole thing done speedily.

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - Simpler=Better - 10-02-2013

You're ballsier than I am, that's for sure

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - w123love - 10-02-2013

(10-02-2013, 12:38 PM)JB3

I've got a nice hole right under the accelerator pedal as well. I'll take notes to see what remedy you come up with. It sure is an awkward spot.

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-03-2013

(10-02-2013, 06:22 PM)Simpler=Better You're ballsier than I am, that's for sure

naa, ive never taken the head off a 617 which you do on a regular basis.

My problem is I pick at scabs on cars. I made this problem for myself, and now I absolutely have to fix it ASAP before I run out of the several day time limit from registration for inspection.

(10-02-2013, 06:47 PM)w123love
(10-02-2013, 12:38 PM)JB3

I've got a nice hole right under the accelerator pedal as well. I'll take notes to see what remedy you come up with. It sure is an awkward spot.

im going to get into the floor pan soon hopefully, after I excise that in the way corner bit I hope to do today, I can get further on the reconstruction and start getting down into the floor.
Have to wait on the rocker panel, so im just going to do the wheel side of the firewall and move into the floor

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-03-2013

cant work on this for a couple days starting about 5 today, so tried to get some of the vertical stuff done this afternoon.

Cut away that supporting brace to expose the entire hole on the framish thing-

after cutting out all the rotten material, and patched (removing that brace also allowed me to get rid of the rest of the rotten floor on this side of the pan)-

With that repaired, brace goes back in-

made a change to the bottom of that brace. It has like a 2 inch gap and is open to the elements stock, and I wanted to be able to get in there and heavily coat everything, so I cut it back a bit to leave a much larger hole so I can paint in there-

With that brace in, I was able to start plating the vertical firewall area-

I had saved this piece of the end of the rocker, so ill probably duplicate the shape and run steel all the way in to form the front of the foot panel/outer floor area. Will have to move the welding inside soon.

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - lgreeley83 - 10-03-2013

Man we need to hang out and have rust repair parties! Shit. My floors are so ugly.

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-04-2013

(10-03-2013, 09:11 PM)lgreeley83 Man we need to hang out and have rust repair parties! Shit. My floors are so ugly.

drive that smoking mofo up here and let the fun begin!

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-05-2013

klokkerholm panel shipment has arrived!

includes a front floor pan, driver side full rocker, and some front trim bits. These damn things are so cheap, it amazes me. All this stuff shipped was less than 150 bucks

the floor pan piece and rocker are more complete than I expected, the floor pan has the inner rocker panel steel as part of it

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-05-2013

rocker and firewall panels in- doesn't look as smooth as stock, but its solid. Debating if I want to put that end of rocker hole in the panel. Also, the rocker piece I used has a provision for the jack hole, but I removed that entire bit. Ill be cutting that provision out and plating it with a bit from the larger piece later

The fender was also damaged, so I will have to repair that before I can put on POR and rubbercoating

tomorrow its time to move inside and fix the Floor time!

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - DiseaselWeasel - 10-06-2013

Wow - your W123 beats many /8s for rust Big Grin

Never seen a frame rail rot like this... Good job saving this one! Smile

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-07-2013

(10-06-2013, 08:12 AM)DiseaselWeasel Wow - your W123 beats many /8s for rust Never seen a frame rail rot like this... Good job saving this one!

thanks!

Im curious about how that frame rot started as well. Ive seen a lot of frame rails that had been crushed by a lift arm, and the subsequently rusted from the bottom up, but this is the first one thats only in this section.

It may have started as a screw hole or something like that long ago, and grew. At one point someone slapped bondo on it without removing the rust, and then it got huge

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - DiseaselWeasel - 10-07-2013

Bondo? I did some welding on a L407D which had wheel arch repairs done with - I kid you not! - play dough! Big Grin

And of course the usual "I'm too lazy to cut" repairs... But had to be expected, the car was a working horse for 30 years and now it's a home-brew camper Big Grin

Anyway. Weird rot on your W123. And bondo certainly didn't help to keep it at bay... Keep us updated!

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-07-2013

(10-07-2013, 10:09 AM)DiseaselWeasel Bondo? I did some welding on a L407D which had wheel arch repairs done with - I kid you not! - play dough! And of course the usual "I'm too lazy to cut" repairs... But had to be expected, the car was a working horse for 30 years and now it's a home-brew camper

Anyway. Weird rot on your W123. And bondo certainly didn't help to keep it at bay... Keep us updated!

Playdough? hahahaha, thats a new one for me.

I wish I had some pics like you do, but my personal favorites were on a 1983 Bronco I owned. It had new carpet in it.

Underneath the carpet someone had rebuilt the floor using wood screws to hold down among other things, a license plate, christmas cookie tin material complete with a holiday pattern, and my personal favorite, an article of clothing (looked like a sweater) that had been dipped in concrete and stuffed in the cab corner. Big Grin

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - DeliveryValve - 10-07-2013

(10-07-2013, 10:14 AM)JB3 [....
I wish I had some pics like you do, but my personal favorites were on a 1983 Bronco I owned. It had new carpet in it.

Underneath the carpet someone had rebuilt the floor using wood screws to hold down among other things, a license plate, christmas cookie tin material complete with a holiday pattern, and my personal favorite, an article of clothing (looked like a sweater) that had been dipped in concrete and stuffed in the cab corner.

Maybe you need to have a separate thread titled... " JB3's Hall of Rust Thread - you got rust that beats mine, post it!"

And in it, you need to post all your rust pictures!

.

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-08-2013

(10-07-2013, 08:48 PM)DeliveryValve Maybe you need to have a separate thread titled... " JB3's Hall of Rust Thread - you got rust that beats mine, post it!"

And in it, you need to post all your rust pictures!

there does need to be a nasty rust thread here, good call! Unfortunately I don't have pics of my favorite stuff, but over time some really ridiculous stuff will probably be posted by people as they find previous perhaps questionable repairs. Big Grin

update-

so have some of the floor taken care of. Here is where excess undercoating really started to get old. There was a lot of it and it takes forever to remove. Also it gets hot if you wire wheel it, and it sticks to everything it touches as it flys around, as well as smoking. I haven't mentioned, but im wearing a respirator the whole time.

here is the basic situation, hole under the pedal, hole above the frame rail, and hole above the fuel/brake lines-

from underneath-

cut it all out, and the plan was a total of 4 patches cut out of my new floor pan. The division in the patches was because both big holes crossed over closed frame sections.

vinyl situation was ridiculous under the pedal area-

the longest part of this set of patches was getting the vinyl off the underside of the car

New steel installed-

this hole ill deal with later, you can see the division between the stock floor and where the other steel repairs ended coming forward-

next order of business is close up the outer floor, and put in the inner rocker, then start painting and seam sealing

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - w123love - 10-08-2013

Woot woot! Looks sweet. Now what are the plans for the base of the accelerator pedal? That little tab? I know there is a W116 part # for a bolt through replacement tab if the old one broke off for whatever reason.

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-09-2013

(10-08-2013, 09:17 PM)w123love Woot woot! Looks sweet. Now what are the plans for the base of the accelerator pedal? That little tab? I know there is a W116 part # for a bolt through replacement tab if the old one broke off for whatever reason.

I think a piece of angle iron might do the job nicely welded down. Ill rummage around in my scrap steel bin.

Only problem is that slot for the little plastic tab. Dam Germans have to make everything hard. Nothing wrong with a hole, but no, it had to be a slot. Big Grin

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-09-2013

nearing the end of this rust situation, have the floor corner in and most of the inner rocker.

ive left myself quite a rust project later from the weld line towards the rear, but hopefully I can pass inspection with that hole not dealt with yet. I might jam gaffers tape in there for now.

here was the outer corner, and patch shape, consisting of part cut from the klokker floor pan-

after I paint on the inside of the rocker, then one more small piece will close up the inner support-

grinding on the outside, then I can get to refitting the fender

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-10-2013

so ive come to a decision on the fender. It looks ok and the paint looks decent, but its pretty rotten around the mounting area. This is looking at it from the back side where the fender would bolt into the rocker-

Unfortunately most of that is rust-

there is also considerable rot in the usual area on the corner-

The plan is im bolting it back on for the winter as is, and with no inner shield for now. It looks fine even rotted like it is, and I have another fender if I can't save this one worst case. Next year ill look into it.

finally starting to finish up on the outside- bottom area-

wheeled, cleaned, and PORed

next seam sealing, then undercoating, then I can put the fender back on and move inside to finish up

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-10-2013

ok, outside done for now. Now to finish up the inside areas-

seam sealed-

undercoated-

reinstalled the crappy fender, looks all right, certainly for the winter. No rusted section of the fender touches the repaired section.

also installed the nice 12 dollar klokkerholm fairing piece for the front. Fits pretty well. Way more convenient than dealing with the rusted out original

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - DiseaselWeasel - 10-11-2013

Is it a genuine fender? If yes, it's well worth saving! Smile

You'll not find a better fitting one ever again. Usually the fit of indicator & gap to the hood is just plain awefull...

[Image: kot6-e1339177894899.jpg]

Though they make for nice repair panel donors Big Grin

Keep on the good work, looking good! Smile

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-12-2013

(10-11-2013, 02:06 PM)DiseaselWeasel Is it a genuine fender? If yes, it's well worth saving! You'll not find a better fitting one ever again. Usually the fit of indicator & gap to the hood is just plain awefull...

Though they make for nice repair panel donors

Keep on the good work, looking good!

yeah I noticed that with the floor pan. Had I tried to weld in the whole thing, it bore only a passing resemblance with the stock material, but they sure make decent patch pieces! glad you saved that fender. I may do the same with this one next year

update-

finally finished, and put a few miles on this thing.

final rust repair pics-

For the throttle pedal, I found this perfect piece of steel kicking around, and just welded it down, then used a file to round out the hole in the pedal, and it worked nicely using a regular nut and bolt instead of the little plastic clip

Inside PORed, seam sealed, and then insulated and everything back in, and buttoned up-

here is the piece I cut out where the pedal mounted-
in the second pic, the pieces with a red line around them are steel that could be welded to, and the blue area is where the pedal was screwed down. Shows you how rotten this area was, the vinyl was so thick that it functioned normally though.

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - w123love - 10-12-2013

That looks damn good. Well done. What is the shiny insulator you used?

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - lgreeley83 - 10-13-2013

You are such a rust boss! How much to seal up my rust bucket?

I'll drink beer and hang out with you while you work. I'll give that to you for free :-) There's gotta be some small trade off value in that though I would think. Hey and maybe I'll even let you have one of my beers!

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - Simpler=Better - 10-14-2013

Goddamn sun, if that's your rust repair I'd like to see your drywall

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-15-2013

(10-12-2013, 07:51 PM)w123love That looks damn good. Well done. What is the shiny insulator you used?

thanks!

its a product called "B-quiet". I got it online last year to do a VW.

I couldn't afford the big name stuff, but this stuff is pretty decent. Its thin, but its really sticky, and the price was great. If i remember, the price for a roll big enough to handle an entire car, plus this floor pan and have some left over was less than the price a quarter the material of dynamat. I doubled up on a lot of this floor as well.

Here is their website-

http://www.b-quiet.com/?gclid=CN6-zpXymLoCFVOe4AodnS4A4A

(10-13-2013, 10:46 AM)lgreeley83 You are such a rust boss! How much to seal up my rust bucket?

I'll drink beer and hang out with you while you work. I'll give that to you for free :-) There's gotta be some small trade off value in that though I would think. Hey and maybe I'll even let you have one of my beers!

lol

you just need a welder and a place to do it (not a flammable carport Big Grin

).

you can drink all the beers, gave up drinking couple years ago Tongue

(10-14-2013, 05:26 AM)Simpler=Better Goddamn sun, if that's your rust repair I'd like to see your drywall

well I fucked up on the rocker now that I finally installed the wheel well inner splash shield. I will need to cut it off and angle it down about half an inch to 3/4s of an inch. I knew it was always a little off, just didn't look perfect, BUT, not as bad as it actually turned out to be unfortunately.

Next year ill start hacking it again. Then I can repair the fender as well.

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - DeliveryValve - 10-17-2013

Besides the little f-up there, I tell ya, you come a long way from your 240 rust repair stint. Nice impressive work!

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-18-2013

(10-17-2013, 09:08 AM)DeliveryValve Besides the little f-up there, I tell ya, you come a long way from your 240 rust repair stint. Nice impressive work!

thanks!

I attribute this mostly to getting rid of the flux core HF welder, and buying a gas feed MIG.

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - Austincarnut - 10-18-2013

why don't you guys buy rust free tx bodies? I have one sitting, waiting in LaGrange for a new home! buy me lunch and bring a trailier!

RE: 123 chassis hood pocket drain rust repair thread - JB3 - 10-24-2013

(10-18-2013, 11:12 PM)Austincarnut why don't you guys buy rust free tx bodies? I have one sitting, waiting in LaGrange for a new home! buy me lunch and bring a trailier!

cost and time. I considered buying a california vehicle, but the cost of flying out there, looking at and purchasing a car, driving back, far outweigh the cost of fixing local rusty vehicles that are in good mechanical order.
Someone wants that rust free body from TX, they gotta drive down there, tow it back, then build an operating vehicle out of it. That adds up fast.

Plus for me, if a car is patched up, I feel a lot less bad about driving it year round. Id hate to take something rust free and dump it in a rusty environment, which is what I would do with anything I bought.