sill replacement
Well its MOT time again & rather than risk it I decided to replace the L/H sill. I had already rolled & bent a sill out of thicker steel & I had a spare sheet of steel so no excuses now!
You can see the cracking in the paint & the bottom lip is a bit suspect as well. so time to set to with a stripping disk.
First supprise is there is about 15mm of filler at this point, but the steel is quite solid.
Working my way along there was a minimum of 5mm of filler all the way across the sill.
So with the outer(s) cut off, 2 of them, welded at the top & brazed at the edge & bottom, you can see the mess underneath. The center section has rusted away at the bottom, but the top of it only has surface rust.
Havingcut the edge back to good metal, I formed a repair patch. I didnt have a sandbag to form it so I used a couple of old cushions. Then I got to try my mig plant out I bought on ebay (£70) seemed ok.
Next I trimmed the inner sill back to good metal, then formed a replacement section in my workmate. I drilled this top & bottom then welded through the holes
With this done I boxed the front off, but got so into it I didnt take a photo!
Then came the trial fits of the outer sill, you can just see that I've drilled the bottom edge for puddle welding. Also I made the sill longer than standard to save on replacement wing panels.
The sill continues to the edge of the wheelarch, after dressing more filler off. At this stage it has been welded on the bottom edge.
These pics show the making of the arch lip. Starting with a cardboard template, then steel notched to fit then bent & welded. to obtain a sharp bend it was formed over a dolly.
Now for the worst bit, to me anyway. Applying the paint, first a grey primer. Oh & I did a bit of filling prior to this.
You can see from this angle it needs a bit more building up to blend it in better.
So here i go with come colour! Looks good from a distance, Got a few runs, so will need a lot more sanding, but overall looks miles better than before. Oh & Passed MOT First Time!
