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N/S B pillar – part 1

I’ve been making a start on the nearside B pillar this week. I’d already removed the outer section and trimmed the repair for that to fit, so started by removing the rotten sections of inner B pillar and surrounding bulk-head (the inner B pillar was in relatively good nick so I just need to make up some small repair sections for that).

The rot extended all the way up to the wheel tubs:

With it all cut out it might look quite bare, but most of the inner is intact:

I’ve welded in repairs to the inner at the bottom, and now just need to make a long thin repair to the edge that meets the bulkhead as well as a section for the door seal:

I’ve been trial fitting the outer B pillar and outer sill as I go, the fit is looking good:

I also made up a strengthening piece for the rear of the middle sill to join it the cargo floor. It’s probably not needed but the other side is attached to the floor along its length so seemed like a good idea:

I’ve also finished stripping down the front end ready to start work on that in a few weeks hopefully:

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More Chassis Fun

Odds and sods this week as I’m finishing up the bits needed before I can get the floor panels in.

Front belly pan out of the rust treatment bath and it looks pretty solid. There are a few pin holes in it that I need to weld shut at some point, but I’ve put some zinc primer on it for now.

Finished up the chassis repair that was holding me back from getting the final 2 outriggers in. 

Epoxy mastic on the inside:

Welded shut:

And a coat of zinc primer on it.It looks miles better than what was there (note that it might look a bit short at the back, but its the other piece which is too large; you can see a nice patch straight over another rusty section. I’ll come back to do this). I’ve also epoxy mastic’d the chassis section where the outriggers will sit as I’ve done with the others. So I should be able to weld the outriggers in this week.

Made up a replacement tab for the clutch cable guide tube. The previous one had snapped off, and it was easier and better to make a new one (sorry about the blurriness!):

And finally I’ve got the RH floor pan trial fitted, and the in-fill piece to take it up to the side panel. 

Next week’s job; drill a ton of holes in the floor panel ready for plug welding to the floor supports and sills, and weld the in-fill piece onto it. I made a start just before I left today.

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Rear Chassis repair

I’ve pretty much finished this repair panel now, I’ll probably spend a bit longer on it to get the front to fit slightly better:

While the paint on the inside of the repair dries I decided to give the front pedal belly pan a bit of attention. 

Before:

After an overnight soak in a bath of Deox-C (it didn’t quite fit in the plastic box I had, but this shows how good the stuff is!). This should be useable once I’ve finished cleaning it up, patched a few pinholes and given it a coat of paint.

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O/S Front outrigger in and further chassis repairs

Today saw the front O/S outrigger go in:

Both front outriggers are in now. Looking good!

Before the middle and rear O/S outriggers can go in I need to repair the chassis section that they attach to (someone has repaired this in the past but it needs fixing again).

Marked up and rot chopped out (you can see the rear of the repair I made earlier to the other side of this section – I’ll get some rust treatment and epoxy mastic in there while I’ve got good access):

And I’ve started fabbing a repair section for it. This largely consists of beating the crap out of a piece of steel with a large hammer and vice to get the bends in the right position:

I’ve got the basic shape and just need to cut it down to size now:

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O/S Rear Torsion bar chassis repair – part 1

A little from this evening’s effort to fabricate a repair for this area. 

Rot and previous rubbish welding chopped out:

Repair panel made up. What a pig to do! The combination of a curved section and slight bend to the panel made this quite tricky to get right. There is also a dip in the panel on one side as it approaches the torsion bar. For that bit I had to weld an extra piece to the panel (I could’ve made the panel bigger and just bent it, but I’d already cut it down to size).Should do the job.

Trial fitted to the chassis, 

Heres the dipped section (sorry about the image quality). It’s not a perfect match for the original but should be a neat repair:

Got some paint on it tonight so should be able to mastic it tomorrow night and weld in Friday. Hoping to get the O/S outriggers in soon once these repairs are done. 

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N/S inner sill and jacking points in

A bit more from this week.

Drilled and prepped the jacking points and inner sill (used my new air punch for the holes; a great time saver!)

Lots of clamps to hold everything in place:

And weld away:

End result. All N/S jacking points plug welded to the top hats and chassis, seam welded to the cross members, and inner sill welded to top hats:

I’ve also bent and fitted a new N/S brake cable guide tube (the old one snapped in half when I removed the rear outrigger). The replacement is stainless steel so shouldn’t rust out. I got the guys at my local metal fabricators (Elite Fabrication & Welding) to flange the end of the tube when I picked it up so it looks just like the factory tube.

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Rear cross member in

A little more from this week.

The loom is now fixed in place through the front cross member (a real pain getting the welding torch into position doing this one, but looks ok!):

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And onto the rear cross member, all clamped into place (I may’ve got carried away buying clamps as I’ve got a decent collection now):

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And welded in (feel pretty comfortable with plug welds now):

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Before I can get the Near side inner sill in there are a few bits of surrounding metal that need some attention (access would be tricky with the inner sill in):

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Rot cut out, and inner sill clamped into place to give a reference point to work out where to bend the repair panel:

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Repair panel made up in the vice (and checked against the replacement floor):

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And all welded in (I’lll repair the bit in front of it at a later point, I’ll be able to do that bit with the sill in). Ignore the beautifully rotten middle sill in the last picture!:

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Correcting the mistakes of the past

I’ve spent most of this week patching a few bits on the chassis rails which need doing before I can put in the rear cross member and O/S jacking points in.

Starting with this beaut around the rear torsion tube. 

A bit of rust treatment (Hydrate 80) before I put the repair in:

And all repaired and painted up (I also put some Epoxy mastic on the inside to help hold back the rust). Looking a lot better (I’ll come back to do the curved bit once I’ve got a bit more metal back in):

I’ll need to do the other side of that chassis rail too before the rear jacking points can go in.

I also patched up this hole at the front which didn’t need too much work:

Next week’s plan is to get the rear cross member in and hopefully some of the jacking points. I’ve got the floor support drilled ready for the cross member to go in. Things are progressing nicely!

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O/S Inner Sill complete

Some further work on the underside this week.  O/S inner sill clamped into place with all jacking points and outriggers in position to make sure they’ll fit correctly (I also trial fitted the floor pan half while I was there):

Inner sill plug welded to all of the floor supports:

And a quick clean up and light coat of electrox over the welds:

And before I can weld in the rear cross member I need to fix this ‘repair’ done by a previous owner (the welding wass pretty rough and the patch was straight over the rusty section underneath):

Repairing the curved section around the rear beam will be interesting as the panel dips slightly as it reaches the beam. I’ll see what I can come up with over the weekend.

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Middle Cross Member in

I managed to get a few hours on the van today and got the middle cross member welded in. 

I spent a fair amount of time practising my plug welds and stress testing them to make sure they were good and strong (doing them in the vertical position took me a while to get used to). 

Clamped in place:

welded to the chassis:

welded to the floor support:

and finished with a clean up and quick spray of electrox:

Really pleased with the results! This project also turned up for one of the guys in the unit across to me, which made me smile:

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