pan repair or replacement

is anyone willing to share their experience with pan repair or replacement?

Being totally ignorant on old car restoration, we failed to look before we bought our bug. Now we've looked under the carpet, which is in really good condition, and the floor is in really bad shape.

One side has something that looks like a resin-type repair. Does that usually work, and for how long?

This is turning into a nightmare, but I'm trying to stay positive, and think, just one thing at a time.

Not sure how far out of your way Stockornaut Restorations is but they are great guys and do great work at a reasonable price. If you talk to them they will be honest and up front with patching or replacing the pan halves.

Stockornaut Restorations - phone# 770-888-4909

I replaced the rear half passanger pan on my 74 a few years ago. I have more pics of the process, (if I can find them) Here is a pic of the finished pan tho:
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Its not a real hard job, but will require some trimming,fitting and welding to get it in right. Make sure to get the best pans your budget will allow. They will fit better and should be close to the original gauge metal. There are alot of cheap pans out there but you will save alot of work to get them to fit right with a quality set. The pans for my 74 came from OE Veedub and are very close to the original.

As for the resin repair, it sounds like they tried to fiberglass the pan at one time. A common ghetto repair, and will do nothing to stop the rust!

There are two ways to do this: body on and body off. I chose to replace mine with the body on. It was probably a little more difficult, but I did not want to pull the body because the supers macpherson front suspension will not allow you to seperate the body and still have a rolling pan unless you rig up some bracing to keep the struts upright. Figure on a long weekend to get it all done.

I had some work done to my floor too. It was in the most common areas- under the battery, and the luggage area (behind the rear seat), although technically, thats not the floor any more. The floor was pretty solid otherwise. My repairs were both done with the body and pan together, but I had removed most of the interior (seats, carpet etc). It was all easy to remove, and there are several VW places around the ATL area that can do this type of repair. Manufacturers reproduce pan halves (l and r), quarters (half of each size) and patch panels, like the battery tray. There are also an abundance of other rust repair panels available, so give the ole bugsy a good visual going over. You may even want to have a magnet handy, and you can find hidden stuff, that isn't really metal anymore!
When dealing with these older cars- that were economy transportation for decades- you find some half-a** stuff. But with common sense, good advice and patience, you can have a vehicle that is truely a blast to own! Your on the right path already- asking a lot of questions!
:Hippy: