Evening!
I've had a busy weekend hidden away in the workshop so here goes
Starting with another piece of rusty twisted metal
that used to live here
so i zinc primed the new inner sill in preparation for the new metal in front of it
new sheet of .9
The repair section roughly cut out
provisional test fit
then i began to add some detail
another quick test
And the finished product
Happy enough with the fit I tacked it in place
then fully welded
gave it a quick clean up
and zinced that too
My thought then turned to the rest of the sill and what exactly i was going to do with it. So out with the DA and on with the sanding.
Multiply coats of paint later and i decided i would just replace the whole thing as it would be easier than multiple small repairs
quite crispy in places
To begin spot welds uncovered by sanding them off
spots drilled
Then to my weapon of choice - freshly sharpened of course
after some grinding and bashing i was left with this
I was happy i had removed the whole lot once I'd done it as the rust had started to come through in places
more cutting and de spotting to remove the very end of the sill from the strengthening support
then some cleaning up of the surface rust
before beginning on the A pillar
New repair panel
By beginning i mean butchering out more rust
leaving this
cleaned off
doused in rust killer and left to dry
back to the sill - cut up then test fitted
detail added
Once I had got the fit close on the front end
I moved on to the back, cleaning the surrounding off as i went
before i could fit the sill i needed to sort out this awkward area
as the lower part of the back of the sill needs to be attached to something other than rust!
So i zinced the inner sill
and began the repair of the corner
to go here
welded
ground back a little
Then made up a return lip
more zinc
While that was drying i painted the a pillar
along with the rest of the inner sill
With paint drying all over the place i thought i would take a look at the 'repair' in the O/S inner arch that i had mentioned previously
Poor picture but this was the hole below that repair between the chassis leg and inner arch
from the inside
In order to repair it i needed the rear seat support out of the way as its covering part of the rust hole in the corner (it needs to be removed to fit the 4 link anyway)
I made myself a cave to protect the glass from grinding sparks etc
and got grinding
to reveal this
Back outside of the car i could now remove the under seal to get a better look at the rust hole.
heated and scraped first
then wire wheeled
Out with the grinder
to carefully remove this piece
as so
Then i cut a little more away from the inner arch to make the repair job a little easier- from the grind line above the spring location back.
Back inside the car i could now see there were three skins involved here.
1. the outer arch
2. the top half of the chassis leg
3. the bottom half of the chassis leg and the rest of the body
As you can see in the pic above the chassis leg has been patched from above but its continued to rot out from under neath
So carefully i began to dissect it further
leaving this
and this
That looks like a pain to remake
Here you can see the 3 skins better
Lets start the repair with number 3 the lower chassis leg, what remains of it looks like this
so i roughed out the new material
and tried it for fit
Happy with my measurements i added some shape
cleaned off the lower chassis leg
Made a few final adjustments and tacked the new metal in
satisfied i welded it home
I then placed the old section of chassis leg back on top to test it all fitted. Thankfully it did
That's all for now
Thanks for looking
James
