Geezus...what a rabbithole, pardon the pun

Never did I think that a roof swap would be this much of a chore.  I knew it had to be dealt with gingerly, cuz manhandling a roof skin poorly will turn it into junk quickly.  Little did I know that portions of the gutter and A pillar needed to be replaced as well.  One thing's for sure, if I ever find another Mk1 I want to buy that has gutter rust, I'm walking away....period!  I will never go thru this again!!!

It's also readily apparent, that while Westmoreland-built cars are generally maligned when compared to German-built cars, that definitely does not hold true with respect to the weldable primer used on all the body parts.  The westie primer is thicker and seems to resist rust better.  This is why we have gutter rust at all, which Jetta's seem to be afflicted with much worse than anything else. (we didn't get any German tintop rabbits in North America after 1980)  The manufacturing process for <<airquotes>> "sealing" the gutter lip edge leaves alot to be desired, and must have been done on a premise that this is an economy car for mass use, not for collector longevity.  The void underneath the roof sheet and gutter form is a ripe haven for rust.  I'm willing to bet that every single Mk1 in the world, has some sort of festering rust occurring under there to some degree.  It comes largely from the fact that this void is open to the headliner cavity, which attracts moisture from your breath, and the massive temperature changes on the roof skin.  Plus there may be a bit of moisture leakage thru the rollover gutter edge itself.

So anyway, the roof skin has been replaced, but the A pillar is the next order of business.  The Passenger side isn't so bad, only needing the new gutter strip and pillar skin, but the DR side needs everything but the inside skin replaced.  You can probably avoid this problem if the Mk1 you are about to buy has Ziebart or Krown and they drilled a hole right and injected inhibitor where the A pillar starts to lean back.

I'm continuing to find more and more previous owner's shortcuts.  The next order of business is to get the braided fuel lines done across the firewall and get the 1.8 back in.  

This project needs to start going in the right direction again, too many steps backward....