New cargo floor ordered. Decided to bite the bullet as this was the state of the floor once I removed all the plate repairs (you can see it extending up the right side of the picture, which I assume won't be much better). Sliding door track is almost non existent at the far end:
For the sections of top hat and I beam that are saveable but need new ends am I ok to just chop them down and butt weld the new ends on? I'll probably cut them back to around the main chassis legs.
Based on the extent of the rust around the area on the floor which the sills attach to and a lot of the perimeter sections I decided the best approach would be to replace the floor entirely (this will give me a chance to clean up most of the underside properly and restore it fully). Starting to chop the floor out in sections: Front half out: Nearly there: All that I could find of the offside middle sill: And majority of the floor out, just the areas around the edges left to unpick from the walls (just to think 4 months ago I was driving this around as my only vehicle!): Having assessed the cross floor supports it looks like I’ll need to do the following: 1st support - Already taken out, new one to fit. 2nd and 3rd I beam supports - In fairly good nick so I’ll repair the sections that need repairing. 4th tophat - Minor repairs. 5th and 6th tophat - Given that these are only welded to the chassis legs now and need some significant repair I think I’ll just replace both of them to save time. [Originally posted on Tumblr]
Needs more cheesy grin No royalties required, the world need more double thumbs ups, keep up the good work, looks like quite a project you've got on your hands.
Cheers. Doing my best to get stuck in! I always see the typhoo tea guy when I see two thumbs up. "2 thumbs fresh!!"
What should I be doing with the middle sill on the sliding door side wrt getting the floor up? I've not taken that section of floor up yet as I'm worried about what would be left to hold the middle sill in place. Any pointers? I guess it'll become clearer once I take a further look but any advice is welcome.
Any thoughts on the above @Diddymen and @brothernumberone? From what I can tell the middle sill is spot welded to the cargo floor (some of the floor the middle sill is attached to disappeared when I ground the paint off, and I can see some of the lip of the middle sill has rotted away). I'm tempted to do the same as @Diddymen and carefully unpick it, repair and reattach to the new floor, but don't want to rush into it.
a bit of chicken and egg decision from memory there is a thicker bit of metal above the sills that is not part or the main cargo floor panel, so it is probably worth leaving it in place for the time being to take references from. There should be a row of spot welds holding it to the cargo floor - I nearly made the mistake of drilling through these thinking they were the ones for the sill (which I then noticed ran in parallel) looks like you might need a few repairs on that part Your getting to the stage where if you remove much more you wont have any references to fit the new panels in the correct place, so I'd be tempted to leave everything as is and concentrate on getting the top hats repaired/in the right place. You can then use those to judge where to fit the inner sill and jacking points (regardless of leaving in place or removing the middle sill) Go for what ever is easiest for you regarding the middle sill, as long as you leave the spot weld holes at the top (bit next to floor) and any marks on the lip of the middle sill it will be easy enough to see if it is back in the right place, by lining the holes up. Others find leaving it in place better (I personally didn't have any problems doing it my way) Could be worth repairing the lower part of the inner rear arch where the end of the sill butts up to. Once you have the rear inner arch and top hats in, the rest should only fit in more or less in the right place. It will go logically after that, inner sill, jacking points/out riggers, middle sill, cargo floor (any when in between) and the bit above sill (if required), inner & outer B posts, outer rear arch, outer sill - done There isn't any right or wrong way to do things, but getting some new metal back in before cutting any more out will certainly give you a morale boost and you will be able to see some progress in the right direction, and give you a few more datum's to work off of.
Thanks for the excellent reply @Diddyman. Yes I think I'll leave the middle sill for now and start getting the top hats and other areas in before I start hacking more out. It doesn't help that I've got some horrid plates welded over that area but yes seeing some fresh metal would be a moral boost!
