Pootle getting some bodywork repairs
This is our van “the Pootle” he is a 1977 Volkswagen T2 (Westfalia Berlin campmobile) imported form the states in late 2007. He is a very solid little bay but a few years in Scotland had taken there toll, we know he needed the rear corner and battery tray replaced when we began to look after him early 2008 and by 2010 a few other bodywork jobs were needing looked at.
We had arranged with Doods of "Doods Dubs" to bring down the Pootle to his workshop at the end of Nov 2009 to have him carry out some body repairs, so I decided it would be best to remove the complete westy interior to make sure there would be access to every nuck and crany.
After Doods and myself had a good look over the van it was decided the Pootle required work to the rear corner and battery tray, bottom of the sliding door, rear of both sills and both the cab steps we agreed that he would begin the work and keep us informed of both progress and problems alike. We know there would be more work needed as Doods began to remove the paint and as we don't have one of those money trees we ask him to let us know when the bill was getting close to £1000
The pic's above show that the nearside rear sill had completely rotted and the front sill had a few holes, the rot had worked its way to the inner sill and a small section of the cargo floor. It all had to be cut away and new metal welded in place.
The pic's below show the rear arch, before investigation there were only a few rust bubbles but as u can see some of the inner wheel arch required to be rebuilt.
The other sill was not as bad but still required the inner and outer panels replaced.
Above shows some pic's of the work done on the sliding door, both inner and outer panels were replaced. The pic's below are of the work carried out on the rear of the van, the offside rear corner looked to have had damage from a previous accident repaired, battery tray had the usual rot, the rear valance outer panel had a few holes in it, the nearside rear corner also required a small patch and both rear chassis rails required abit of attention. Doods found a small nest of some kind hiding in the rear valance, just one of many things this small resto turned up.
The Pootle must have had some kind of fixed pull out canopy in its life which had caused some small damage to the area above the gutter rails and had lift two fixing hole in the upper body which needed some work.
A few panel seems were beginning to bubble but cleaned up nicely.
Small patch of fresh metal welded in to repair some rust holes in front arch
Both cab steps were badly rotted and had to be cut out and replaced
The campervanarmy would like to thank Doods of Doods Dubs for all his hard work on the Pootle, many people advised us to go to Doods for the welding as his work is to a very high standard and we were not disappointed.
He also prepared the Pootle for his MOT, replacing 4 ball joints on the front suspension before taking it to his local MOT station were it passed without any problems.
He carried out all this work for a very fare price which I will disclose on a one to one basis.
You can find details of Doods Dubs on our link page.