Side air vent rust repair

On my 74 Std Beetle there are two vents behind the rear quarter windows. I know about the foam and how that caused them to rust out :-( What I don't know is if anyone sells a repair patch for those vent openings, without having to buy the entire quarter and cut it up. I think I can make a repair piece well enough to pass, but that is a tricky set of flanges and curves for the home bodyshop (made the drivers side, it is OK, but not perfect). Anyone ever found patches for these? I don't see one made by anyone, I do see the entire quarter.

Reply to
js
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Js I cut the area from a 70 down parts beetle when fixing that area. as far as I know there is no body makeing patch panels for that area, I would hope will the increase of later model beetle restorations going on that someone will start makeing quality repair panels.

mario Vintage Werks resto

Reply to
Kafertoys

how about junkyard?

ant> js wrote:

Reply to
anton

Yeah, I thought about a junker, but finding one around here is not easy. I really hate to cut up a Bug, unless it is a new one ;-)

I did think of simply cutting the piece out and making it smooth like the old bug, but I am going to try and keep it as original as possible. I guess I will bit the bullet and get the sheetmetal back out. I will let you know how it turns out, thanks for the info! Maybe I can fabricate some and sell them if they turn out well enough.

Anyone else need something like this? My father in law owns a body shop, and has a bunch of sheetmetal toys. I could probably get it down to science, or make a form/buck and beat some out pretty quick.

Reply to
js

I have a similar thing going on but have not gotten to it yet (doing channels now). I'd be interested to see how you end up fixing it so perhaps post some pictures somewhere?

Remco

Reply to
Remco

Sure Remco. I have already formed the drivers side piecs out of sheetmetal, using a hammer and dolly and some pliers. Made a paper model to go by, 3 pieces, then taped together. I will post some pics on my web site and send the link.

Working on a Porsce 356B Coupe for a friend right now, but hopefully I can get to it soon. Has a Super 90, dual Webers, and a single flange exuast with a glasspack. Sounds awesome. Wish I could afford something like that to put in the Green Bean!

Reply to
js

II feel your pain, you want your car to be as original as possible, but the fact of the matter is those louvers behind the rear windows lead to rust problems. They really do not serve a great purpose. It seems they were originalyy thought to force air over the back window, and into the engine bay. But then they thought about fumes, it appears, and backed off on that and put the foam in their to seal out the engine fumes. Thus the rust issues.

When you repair this area, you will get out t> Sure Remco. I have already formed the drivers side piecs out of

Reply to
vgonman

.......This is why I sealed up the louvers on my 77's trunk lid. Water came in and ruined my stereo so then I decided that originality bites on a '77 bug anyway.

timmy

Reply to
Tim Rogers

Interesting..

I have not looked closely on mine so don't know if there's foam present but may think about doing the same thing to alleviate future problems. Mine is a 72 and, from what I've heard, they stopped doing the foam thing at some point - hopefully just before mine was made. ;)

Thanks for the tip.

Remco

Reply to
Remco

I am going to keep it original if possible, I am, as you say, a purist. ;-) Thanks for the advice!

Reply to
js

the crescent shaped vents are part of the ventilation system for the passenger compartment, not the engine bay. the air is routed out around the rear window....they have nothing to do with the engine compartment...

Reply to
Joey Tribiani

do they have anything to do with the defroster vents?

Reply to
js

Joey,

You are both right and wrong on this one. I had been inside this panel a couple of times. If you open the decklid in the upper right behind it you will see an opening that curves upward with the body. If you stick a screwdriver in there, you will pole into some foam. This foam fills that crevice, and this crevice goes straight up to the crescent vents. Once i remove the foam, i stuff some different noise suppression stuff into that crevice. Without the foam, it is alot noisier in the car.

Now I was not a VW engineer in a past life, but you can tell that those openings in the engine bay were a design to force more cooling air into the engine bay. As most of us know, as the engines got bigger, they became starved for cooling air, and my thoughts are this was a design for that. I would venture to guess tha in some other world market beside the US, those engine compartment openings were NOT filled with foam. Maybe some one can reply on this that has a non-german VW beetle, or one made for Euro market.

Those crescents do put exterior air thru those vents that are by the back window, but, to be honest, the window behaves the same with or with out the crescent louvers. Rain-X anti fog seems to help back there.

Joey Tribiani wrote:

Reply to
vgonman

I have a '73 1300 wíth foam in the back ánd rust in the moon shaped vents :) Once the rust is getting too much, I think I'll get the foam out and try to fix it without it...

Roger

Reply to
bug '59

whether there is a "path" to the engine compartment or not is a moot point...i, too, have "been in" there before...the foam is to isolate the engine compartment from the passenger compartment....the "openings" in the corners of the engine compartment are holes due to the design of the panels and for the wiring to pass through....maybe since the roof had a void running fron the front to theback the engineers wanted folks to be able to put vents in the front roofline and the a-pillars so you can get a ram air effect? just because the "void" from engine compartment to the passenger compartment *can* be opened up, doesn't mean it is designed to be....don't try to re-engineer or deside what engineers were "thinking" 35 years ago....

Reply to
Joey Tribiani

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