skoda_cat

The vinyl was **** and didn't stick to the axle, I got it on there with frog tape but it wasn't TIGHT like we needed it to be. I threw some yellow at it because, well, we're here now. and tbh it'll be perfectly fine for what i need it to do, remind me not to break this beam, after i touch it up with a black paint stick.

Tried to get shocks from dingboro with no joy so ended up ordering some kyb bouncy guys, febi wheel bearings, and what MIGHT be the right rubbers for the strut top, we’ll see. I’ve also got a spot welder in the mail to make getting the bottom of the sill on more easily, I’ll just sell that on when I’m done. Tomorrow I plan to get the no jack warning painted on the axle, the hammerite has had plenty of time to settle.

My days, in 18 months this thing will be a historic vehicle of interest and will be LEZ exempt. The law is mad.

ah, seems these HEROs have the vague guide I need! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRWqAoYIfCI

Yeh, thanks. Having welded 'the rest' of this truck I'm fine about the actual welding; it's more that I don't know how the panels on this specific unit are layered up and so exactly where to cut eludes me.

Free the bottom edge of the sill, tec screw the new one over the top and cut through both layers? Scab the top edge back together with weld and then tack the bottom back in? I don't have a spot welder or access to one :/

Sills arrived and look like they'll fit well and maybe even have enough length to bend over into the returns on the rear end. I offered one up and i see how it has a lip at the top edge that goes in towards the center of the truck... Does anyone on here know how that bit of metal is on there from the factory? Should I be looking for spot welds along that top seam, or like... where do I cut?! I think I'm out of my depth here :D

Got the rest of the axle painted roughly in hammerite black. It still needs more time to set up, but in the meantime I squitted this out of my tiny cricut as a stencil for the yellow paint I got. It's sticky backed stuff, so i should be able to slap it on the axle, mash around it and go to town for a few coats of yellow. Hopefully that will produce sharp enough text to be readable after 50,000 miles. After it's coloured in, I'll shove some top clear coat over it to try and protect it a bit.

Sills ordered.

Yeh, that’s a combined bump stop/ dust cover thing, but I was really referring to the not-in-shot double wedge rubber guys that clamp the damper to the body and give the swivel compliance. I also need new boots to go on top but fear I’ll need to mould my own from silicone or something.

Got some hose retaining clip things: so they shouldn't fall out. Started some wire wheeling and pulled off that 'no jacking' label to find out what the original paint was like. Some reasonable performance weight savings have occurred. Wire wheeled it all back as best I could and gave it a bit of a wash and wipe down. and started colouring it in.

I know it's a bit of a postapalooza, sorry. My neighbour came round, muttered under his breath, whacked the nuts with a cold chisel and a 5lb hammer and it all came undone with a temu rattle gun. Now my axle is drooping in a sad way and my springs fell out. oops. I'm staring forlornly at my bank balance wondering how I'm going to get some new shocks and top mount doobies before next month. lol. Projects, what a waste of money. I'm so happy :P Actually whilst the axle is hanging, I can try and clean up some of the top and give it a squirt of hammerite. Sadly the rest of today is rain.

This has taken a LONG time to get out, the top of the strut being nicely rusted. but another round of heat, penetrant, and violence got the nut suddenly moving. That gets us this rotten old bouncy thingy out As soon as I get some more money I'm going to get new ones that aren't so rusty. I THINK I'm going gas, not oil as this isn't primarily going to be a load carrying vehicle. The important question is: What's that rubber stuff up at the top called because although I can get shocks from loads of places I'm struggling to locate the top hat bush thingy and that should be refreshed too I feel. Actually bad form but probably this?: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/404677052614 Of course I can't get the other side out, but if time got this one moving I expect the same magic can happen on the other side.

Nipped up all the lines, lobbed some fluid in the top and gave it a squeeze. Pedal feels ****ty so more is needed, but if you press the pedal you can't move the drums and if you let off the pedal you can so that's SOME kind of win.

these things had BETTER work. This side was MUCH harder, left hand being weaker i needed help from my lovely neighbour to get the brake lever back on the cable, everything else went reasonably well. I don't look forward to EVER doing this job again, lol.

hmm some progress perhaps, not finalised, it needs the bits and bobs greasing, but i THINK those springs are all in the right places more or less.

The bloody drama continues apace but I'm too weak to get the springs in any of the right places, hahaha. Will deffo get these brakes back on in the end. This is improving stuff, it is. I read back through this thread and it's picked me up a bit, this truck has been on a long journey but it's all moving in the right direction.

ooh, I found out it's the 50kW version, so the fastest piece of **** low powered crap of the 1.3L options :P lol. I MAY turbo it one day to make sure the plastic engine breaks, but it briefly does 100bhp :P

All rubbed down and some prophylactics added :p splish splash And then we find that the new spring kit for the new brakes isn't right. YAY.

New cylinders arrived and seem to fit right, they're single bolt units where the old units were double bolted. Not sure if I should pop them in the milling machine and ADD another bolt hole or trust that one bolt with threadlock is enough to hold them in. VW evidently think it's enough, lol. It's impossible to get an unmodified union wrench on the flexy joint inside the torsion axle thingy. Either the axle is in the way, or you get hung up on the fuel tank. So the flexies had to come out, but that's probably for the best since they're in SOME state and we're going shopping tomorrow morning to see if we can replace them. Took some fire and stuff to get that to let go. I really need to get my vice mounted properly again. Happily I have an 'in' with the local garage and we managed to sneak in and have a go on this... So we have two fresh lines ready to go on if we can fangle the bends ok. Wish me luck, maybe functioning rear brakes tomorrow... the fronts will surely need the same care and attention. I just want to be able to drive it up and down the drive again for a bit to take the depression about the welding away. I need another payday and then it's new sills and a leather welding jacket so I can stop setting myself on fire.

Bought a new cylinder from a local motor factor, then tried to buy a matching one from ebay (the factor could only get one) and the ebay lads said 'are you sure? that's not the right one'. and we discovered that my old pistons are 22mm and the one the factor gave me was a 19.5mm for an ABS car. My truck is too old and **** for that kind of disaster preparedness. The ebay dude VERY kindly gave me the correct part number which has now gone via autodoc (hmm) and evri (eurgh) and hopefully in a few days we'll have working rear brakes again. No sills ordered yet, I need to wait for payday.

Been a minute, sorry. I got some mild confidence and tried to weld that patch in, but the sill is just tissue paper, I can't get any weld on it without it blowing itself to death. I'm going to cut my losses and buy two complete outer sills and go mental with the angle grinder. I do wonder if I need to brace anything first though. That job being trashed I figured I'd get it off axle stands for a bit. So my neighbour and I started bleeding the brakes, that's when we found out both rear wheel cylinders were seized, yay. Better than that, the bleeder on the back left just went PING and sheered off. Yay. The BESTESTS thing was that when we got the first drum off we found the hub nut was LOOSE (face palm emoji) but anyway the mess inside was like: Only ONE broken spring, heh. We got it all wrestled off but had to drill out the bolts for the brake cylinder. That's just crap on the axle thingy, it's not actually knackered. The process of trying to free the pistons from the second cylinder broke it but also look at the STATE of these things: Soooo crunchy We popped to the local motor factors and ordered a cylinder to see if it would match up, and got new shoes and springs, we left the old ones sprung up as references: In an effort to cheer up, I wired in the second VIBE BLACKAIR T12 sub and fired up the stereo. When it was just one it was ok but a bit borderline, two however has the ability to get slightly uncomfortable which means there's enough bass it gives me more enthusiasm to keep chucking money into this PIT in the hope I can drive it one year.

It's not raining today, weird. Dropped the tail gate off because it's trying to blow out on the bottom edge and I don't want that to get worse, also will be WAY easier to repair off the truck. This gets us further away from MOT of course, because now I don't have a rear licence plate. Got some of the middle structure welded back in, so there's SOME strength in this back end of the sill. I'm not going to post a picture of what happened to my shoulder and neck, but molten steel is VERY hot and goes quite a long way into your skin, doesn't it? My bacon smells overdone, I think these tracks are going to be in my skin forever. I was wearing full overalls, welding mask, cap, and gloves; but the molten trickles are cleverer than me, I got got. sad face emoji. not to let that drama get the better of me I've started work on closing panels for the outer sill: I'll hold off welding that till I've made the one for the other side. Then it's just plating the inside of the arch and building a return for the end of the sill. I should be able to get my jack stand under THIS bit then, and repair the larger but simpler section which I can't get at right now because the stand is in the way. I'm happy to be making a bit of progress again anyway.

i hardly understand any of this, my tailgate is rotting and i want to cry. what's the checkerplate deck doing for you? it's interesting.

I've not given up, but I have slowed down, I bet none of you noticed. But I've jacked it up twice as high and it's WAY easier to get under now, my neighbour also loaned me a wheely sled thing which makes scooting in and out easier. Hopefully I can actually get in and rebuild some sill in the next few weeks. I'm feeling like I can make some progress again.