Sorry, nothing done this week...

...unfortunately work on the house took priority this week so nothing done on the car. Hopefully back at it next week!

Bit more done....

...but no pictures today as drilling more spot welds isn't the most fantastic photo subject!

Today I set to work on the second used rear quarter, that I bought, to separate the inner panel. Lots of scraping of seam sealer followed by drilling of spot welds. Got a couple of hours in but didn't manage to complete it.

Inner rear quarters

With the previous repairs to the inner rear quarters not being to the standard I want, I went on the search for a pair of good panels from a scrapped car. Luckily I turned up a pair not too far away so went and collected them.

Here we have the left side. The outers had been patched in the past but the inners were excellent and unrepaired.

So I cracked out the drill and angle grinder and got on with removing the spot welds. After some considerable time I was left with this which I don't need...

...and this, one of the panels I needed.

Which rear cross members?

 

Not a great deal done this time but I did take some time to decide which replacement rear cross members to use. Since starting the project I'd been looking for a good quality pressing for both sides and in the process had collected three pairs of cross members.

The first set were sold by a well known UK seller as being genuine VW but when received were found to be Klockerholm parts (the sticker on them gave this away!). When queried with the seller they stated that Klockerholm was an OE supplier to VW. The pressings were far from good with heavy rippling on the largest flat face. The holes that the bolts go through into the floorpan were also not punched in.

I then looked for a better pair and, when Heritage linked in to supply VW Classic parts I thought my luck was in. Having ordered both sides again I received one grey and one black cross member (Mexican and Brazilian I guess). The grey part was excellent quality but the black one not. When compared to the Klockerholm parts I already had the black "OE VW" part looked very similar if not identical so I do now believe what I was told by the original supplier of the Klockerholm panels. Unfortunately the area where both cross members join was very different between the genuine black cross member and the grey one so they could not be used as a pair.

My final attempt was a web site purchase from someone who had bought a pair of cross members but not used them. I was informed they were "grey" ones so went ahead and waited for the delivery. On receipt I identified them as the grey, pattern type that Heritage used to sell and that were credited with good reviews by people who had used them when available.

So, given the Klockerholm are not the quality I'm looking for (worst quality in my opinion), and I only have one genuine grey cross member (best quality in my opinion and, if I had a pair these are the ones I'd be using), I've decided to use the two grey pattern parts (they need a bit of work to make them fit together but overall the pressings are quite OK).

Below are the six I had to choose from.

Here is the problem area on the grey pattern parts.

Reworking the problem area.

...and here it is finished.

...and the other side

Much the same this side although it does look like there has been no repair patch made this time.
On the negative side it appears the inner panel has been cut accidentally at the B pillar side when cutting the old outer rear quarter out during a previous repair. An attempt has been made to weld the damage.

Now I know what I have on both sides I'm deciding how to tackle the repairs and how much metal to replace.