We dug too greedily… too deep… and found out that the bus is hiding all kinds of past scars under layers and layers of body filler!
I decided the face of the cargo door needed to be sanded a little – we knew there was at least some Bondo on the thing because it had cracked over the winter. So I start sanding and sanding with the new electric DA sander (another Harbor Freight purchase).
After a lot of sanding, the Bondo was all still there… so I got out the grinder and went deeper… a lot deeper!
Turns out there is like an inch of this stuff, but it almost falls right off. It looks like some previous owner decided to cover up a huge dent in the door without doing any body work, and without even grinding off any paint! I’m brand new to all of this, but everything I have read and watched says body filler needs to be applied directly to the sheet metal; if it’s not, it won’t grip the surface at all. I even read it in the 1989 “Haynes Automotive Body Repair and Painting Manual” that I randomly found on the shelf at O’Reilly – the fact that the Internet wasn’t around is no excuse!!
I start chipping away at it with a hammer and screwdriver. At one point, I opened up some hidden reservoir of moisture – the bus started bleeding – just great! This is going to be a lot more work that I thought.
Noelle gets in on the sanding action.
Its a VW Bus Bondo Inkblot – tell me, what do you see?
So after clearing most of the thick body filler from the passenger side of the bus, its clear that it has been sideswiped and gouged at some point in the past. The rear cargo door is now fully bent in and there are multiple deep dents. Time to get out the tools! I bought a hammer and dolly set a while ago, and rented this slide hammer thing from Autozone (only $180… yikes! Better not lose it).
After pulling and banging and freaking out and then calming down and then getting somewhat violently mad and then calming back down again, we had worked the door back into its original shape. It still needs a little work, the dents aren’t as big now though, and at this point I think I can check ‘work auto body sheet metal back into place after a wreck off my (huge) list of things to do before I’m out!
We then started on the rear corners – could tell there was a lot of filler, but each corner represents its own version of a nightmare..
So… I’ve got a few more metal replacement pieces to buy (which I’m sure won’t really fit that well anyways!) We are going to check out the local VW place Monkey Nut VW to see if they sell what we need… Progress!
