Tech tips on restoration

[Fire-medic]

I ran across this thread, it's about a restoration of a VW Thing, which is a civilian version of a WW II Kubelwagen, as-far as I am aware. One of my firefighter co-workers had one (also a '57 Nomad, and a '56 before that), they have a propensity to rust.

Here's a good thread to look thru for how the guy does the reclamation of parts, including disassembly, degreasing, surface prep, etc. He 's got the same Harbor Freight 'sandblaster' as do I (one of the early posts says to use aluminum oxide, not sand, to save your respiratory system, and to always use a proper respiratory mask, with cartridges, rated for your media blasting material).

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=273089&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I haven't gone thru all the pages yet, but just seeing some of the things he did to get the disassembly underway, and the clean-up of parts, is helpful.

he had trouble disassembling the ball joints w/his size shop press, so he cut out the centers, using a gas axe, and was able to complete the disassembly, He may have been able to save himself the cost of the gas by taking them to a machine shop w/a big-enough capacity press, but I think that's the thread theme, "try it yourself."

For instance, he uses those cheap poly tarps on a light framework to create a 'sandblast' area, and an under the car-engine drip tray to provide a place to 'sandblast' without perforating the tarp. He claims he can set it up for work in 10 min. If you see the post, at the end of page 1, you'll see the pics. I had thought of doing the same thing w/either pvc pipe or EMT conduit, before I saw this.

Anyway, just from the content I saw on the first page, I'm sure there will be some other tidbits throughout, so I'm gonna mine the thread for whatever helpful tips I can get. Take a look, you may see something you can use, too.

 

[blaxmax]

I ran across this thread, it's about a restoration of a VW Thing, which is a civilian version of a WW II Kubelwagen, as-far as I am aware. One of my firefighter co-workers had one (also a '57 Nomad, and a '56 before that), they have a propensity to rust.

Here's a good thread to look thru for how the guy does the reclamation of parts, including disassembly, degreasing, surface prep, etc. He 's got the same Harbor Freight 'sandblaster' as do I (one of the early posts says to use aluminum oxide, not sand, to save your respiratory system, and to always use a proper respiratory mask, with cartridges, rated for your media blasting material).

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=273089&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I haven't gone thru all the pages yet, but just seeing some of the things he did to get the disassembly underway, and the clean-up of parts, is helpful.

he had trouble disassembling the ball joints w/his size shop press, so he cut out the centers, using a gas axe, and was able to complete the disassembly, He may have been able to save himself the cost of the gas by taking them to a machine shop w/a big-enough capacity press, but I think that's the thread theme, "try it yourself."

For instance, he uses those cheap poly tarps on a light framework to create a 'sandblast' area, and an under the car-engine drip tray to provide a place to 'sandblast' without perforating the tarp. He claims he can set it up for work in 10 min. If you see the post, at the end of page 1, you'll see the pics. I had thought of doing the same thing w/either pvc pipe or EMT conduit, before I saw this.

Anyway, just from the content I saw on the first page, I'm sure there will be some other tidbits throughout, so I'm gonna mine the thread for whatever helpful tips I can get. Take a look, you may see something you can use, too.

Isn't that "The Thing"?

 

[Fire-medic]

What's an article ("the") between friends?

Wasn't "The Thing" the hand on the Addams Family tv show?

Here is a jalopnik article about what may have happened to the Thing causing it to be not sold here after a short run. Nader and possibly Iacocca.

 

[Traumahawk]

Wasn't "The Thing" the hand on the Addams Family tv show?

I always think of a movie.

 

[blaxmax]

What's an article ("the") between friends?

Wasn't "The Thing" the hand on the Addams Family tv show?

Here is a jalopnik article about what may have happened to the Thing causing it to be not sold here after a short run. Nader and possibly Iacocca.

No the Addams Family it was just "Thing".

 

[one2dmax]

Got a whole shriner group runs around in them (painted bright orange)

 

[Zeus36]

Everybody called it a VW Thing back in the 70s.

 

[blaxmax]

Everybody called it a VW Thing back in the 70s.

That's it. Must have had the "Le Car" on the brain--:bang head: