When you are repairing large rotten areas of a particular car the best way to approach it is to try and keep as much of the original panelwork in place and replace a section at a time. That way its easier to line everything up.
I never got the chance when welding the drivers side. Pretty much everything fell off in one go without any real effort!
The passenger side is better on the outside, with no dodgy repairs or filler. But the inside is worse with a large repair patch to the rear of the floor. It was solid enough to pass an MOT but it looked as if the guy who fitted it was in a hurry! They had used the 'Stamp it into shape with your boot' forming method. They had not welded it all the way round and it had never seen a drip of paint/protection!
Anyway, heres some pics...
The offending 'patch'...
The area that had 'escaped 'the welder!
Using an angle grinder with a thin cutting disc I began cutting thru the solid metal surrounding the patch. One thing to be careful of if you are doing this is make sure you know whats on the other side of the cut. It would have been very easy to cut thru the fuel pipes and brake pipes here...
I had intended making a nice neat repair section and filling the hole. However, removing the patch revealed how bad the inner sill was. As the floor and outer sill rely on the condition of the inner sill I decided to repair that 1st. Here it is from below...
As the holes/rust extended along the inner sill from the rear wheelarch to past the hole I had just cut I had to remove the good part of the floor from the inner sill. This was just a case of drilling out the spot welds and carefully pulling the floor section uo out the way.
If you are likely to be doing any bodywork involving removing spotwelds and seperating panels I would recommend one of these...
Its basically a thin bit of steel with sharpened edges at the top. It hammers in between the panels without bending them out of shape as much as normal chisels etc.
You can see from the picture above I have also removed the sound deadening. Its a pain welding near this stuff as it burns well and stinks the garage out! A pain on this car but potentially expensive if your car still has an interior!
I never got the chance when welding the drivers side. Pretty much everything fell off in one go without any real effort!
The passenger side is better on the outside, with no dodgy repairs or filler. But the inside is worse with a large repair patch to the rear of the floor. It was solid enough to pass an MOT but it looked as if the guy who fitted it was in a hurry! They had used the 'Stamp it into shape with your boot' forming method. They had not welded it all the way round and it had never seen a drip of paint/protection!
Anyway, heres some pics...
The offending 'patch'...
The area that had 'escaped 'the welder!
Using an angle grinder with a thin cutting disc I began cutting thru the solid metal surrounding the patch. One thing to be careful of if you are doing this is make sure you know whats on the other side of the cut. It would have been very easy to cut thru the fuel pipes and brake pipes here...
I had intended making a nice neat repair section and filling the hole. However, removing the patch revealed how bad the inner sill was. As the floor and outer sill rely on the condition of the inner sill I decided to repair that 1st. Here it is from below...
As the holes/rust extended along the inner sill from the rear wheelarch to past the hole I had just cut I had to remove the good part of the floor from the inner sill. This was just a case of drilling out the spot welds and carefully pulling the floor section uo out the way.
If you are likely to be doing any bodywork involving removing spotwelds and seperating panels I would recommend one of these...
Its basically a thin bit of steel with sharpened edges at the top. It hammers in between the panels without bending them out of shape as much as normal chisels etc.
You can see from the picture above I have also removed the sound deadening. Its a pain welding near this stuff as it burns well and stinks the garage out! A pain on this car but potentially expensive if your car still has an interior!
