OK, so I have heard this before and being a body man, explain this to me:  Welding the seams will surely destroy any coating on the surrounding metal, both sides, so then what ?  Seems to me you need access to both sides of the seam to then be able to clean up the area and coat it with your favourite metal protection, mine is POR-15.  If I recall correctly not all the seams are accessible from both sides.  And���if you're going to go to all the trouble to get to both sides of the seam why not just clean up the rust and POR-15 the seam from both sides and forget about the welding which will in some cases distort the metal thereby giving you more work to straighten out.  AND, if you use any type of body filler to help straighten out the uneven surfaces you have created by the welding there is another area of possible rusting as it is pretty well impossible to stop rusting beneath an area of metal that has had body filler applied to it UNLESS you follow the steps outlined in the process POR-15 advocates where their filler is applied onto of the POR-15 which has been top coated with their bonding primer.  Quite the procedure but it works !

On 2012-11-19, at 11:49 PM, Automatic digest processor <LISTSERV@GERRY.VANAGON.COM> wrote:

> Other than the obvious thought o=
> f the additional difficulty of removing any panel in the future if needed an=
> d some additional body work to smooth them out before repainting, are there a=
> ny other items that would suggest welding the seams is a really bad idea?

Cheers,    

Frank Condelli
Almonte, Ontario, Canada
'87 VW Westy, '00 Kawasaki 250 Sherpa, "98 Ducati 750 Monster & Lionel Trains (Collection for sale)
Frank Condelli & Associates - Vanagon/Vanagon Westfalia Service in the Ottawa Valley
Vanagon Stainless Steel Exhaust Systems
BusFusion a VW Camper camping event, Almonte, ON, June 06 ~ 09, 2013