kevin s's blog

[TerryG]

Damn you work fast! It took me 6 hours to rebuild a body mount and the bottom of the A pillar.

[kstrutt1]

it is all the fiddly bits which seem to take forever, the cutting /welding on the C post only took 3 hours, but I have spent a week on and off painting / sealing and fixing all the little things like making new mudflap brackets, repairing the bumper end cap (sheared off bolts), setting the door striker, drilling out sheared bolts for the seat latch etc.

The other side has even more potential for issues with the filler neck, lpg filler and tank breather to deal with.


Kevin

[kstrutt1]

Spent a couple of hours on the range rover this afternoon, as it has to have the lpg inpected I decided to start sorting out the clipping of the fill pipe.

The fill pipe had been clipped along the lower edge of the rear wheelarch, this had led to mud being trapped around it and now the lower 2" of the inner arch where it joins the floor needs replacing as well as the clips which had also rusted away, this alll led to me cleaning the underseal off the rest of the arch, the area around the seat belt and c pillar has rusted much the same as the other side and will be done soon, but the rear of the sill was much worse with the body mount being almost non existent, the inner and outer sill were fine again though.

So in the end to gain access I cut the end 9" of the outer sill and 6" of the inner away then made a new inner from 4mm steel with the body mount fabricated out of the same and all butt welded together, this is now welded in and I just need to fold up a new outer sill and cut out the closing pieces to go in the arch, this will probably monday evening as I am collecting 2 new rear doors tomorrow.

Kevin

[TerryG]

It sounds like you have been busy. The factory body mount is 3mm steel with the inner sill 2mm. I've replaced 3 with one more to do.
Your repair doesn't sound too bad. The idiot that installed mine put 1 1/2" self tapping screws in to the floor so the floor itself rotted out around them and they made holes right through the carpet in to the floor mats!
It is now held in with P clips riveted to the L section that the fuel lines run along but on the other side

[kstrutt1]

Going forward from the tank they have done just as you describe, perhaps the apprentice did the fill line!

[kstrutt1]

Some pictures of where I got to yesterday :

fistly the new body mount from the centre of the vehicle?

rps20151011_195744.jpg (37.57 KiB) Viewed 1662 times

And from the rear of the vehicle.

rps20151011_195718.jpg (33.55 KiB) Viewed 1662 times

Finally the base of the carch where the lpg pipe was, you can see it where I now plan to route it over spring seat and clipped to the boot floor x members with p clips.

rps20151011_195836.jpg (65.06 KiB) Viewed 1662 times

Hopefully should get the new metal welded in tomorrow evening.


I also picked up a pair of rust free rear doors, even in the right colour! One does have a dent so that will need sorting then they can go on.

[kstrutt1]

Cleaned all the metal up, painted all hidden surfaces with weld through primer, welded the repair pieces in and with just the row of plug welds to the floor left ran out of gas!

should be able to get some more tomorrow so hopefully it will now be done tomorrow night.

[kstrutt1]

Welding on the lower edge of the inner arch and rear of sill / body mount is all finished, tomorrow it goes for the lpg inspection then friday the rest of the arch and c pillar base will be repaired.

I also had a closer look at the front, it looks much worse than I thought, someones idea of a repair was to cover everything in 1/4 inch of filler then underseal around the kick panel, outer edge of the floor and inner body mounts, I am not sure how bad the metal is under the filler though because from the inside it looks ok, also the outer sills are quite deeply pitted under the plastic covers so I may replace them completely.


More work, but at least I can make everything so it won't cost much except time!

[kstrutt1]

Range rover passed the lpg inspection so one less thing to worry about, did have a bit of a moment on the way when it failed to proceed, switching to petrol returned motive power. It turned out despite showing half full on the gauge it had run out of lpg, 40L of gas had it running fine again, lesson learnt i'll use the trip meter in future.

Also fitted the door handles and latches to the minor, and started fitting the steering column, but at the moment I can't find the pinch bolt

[kstrutt1]

Ended up with only a couple of hours on the range rover this morning, firstly I had to wire the rear heated screen in on the mx5 which was not too bad as most of the wiring is already there.

Then I started on the RR, removed the rh wing and this was what I had.

rps20151016_223438.jpg (37.38 KiB) Viewed 1581 times

rps20151016_223520.jpg (41.83 KiB) Viewed 1581 times

After a few taps with a hammer to remove the filler I had this.

rps20151016_223554.jpg (40.05 KiB) Viewed 1581 times

So I cut the archback to sound metal and there was not much left!

rps20151016_223632.jpg (27.05 KiB) Viewed 1581 times