Replacing a Sill on a Classic

[keithdixon]

Don't you hate days like today,

Decided to have the afternoon off to catch up with replacing the body mount bushes just to see a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of the sill with a dirty great big hole in it.

Played with the spanner and ended up deciding that the whole sill needed replacing.

Got on the phone and have a replcement sill on it's way.

I was told that it needs bolting and welding in.

Has anyone done the cills before and if so what is the procedure?

rgs

keith dixon

[Range Rover Blues]

Your car's turning into an epic.  Makes me feel only slightly better about ours.  I might suggest the haynes restoration manual for the Range Rover, christmas coming and all that.  The one for the Capri is good, as is the Escort/Cortina 1&2 (if you have a Cortina).

[MUSKIE]

i have just been round a mates house and he is diong this exact job and i do not envy him. he has the entire interior out to save it getting damaged, once this is done it seems a straight forward cut off and weld back on. once the car is in bits it really does look that easy, its just time consuming taking interior out but makes it alot easier than working around it all.
i just hope you dont find all the other welding that he has :shock: , it just gets depressing :(

[keithdixon]

should be straight forward,

got the sill yesterday and it seems like it has all the fixong holes to bolt on

once bolted on it should be straight forward welding to get the thing in place.

(mig welder on it's way due for monday)

it could be patched but my thoughts are if i can do it properly i might as well especially when it's £35 ish, save doing the same thing again in 6 months / 1 year

just a pain in the a**e when you want to get the thing finished and drag it through mud.

rgs

keith dixon

[keithdixon]

Progress so far,

after working till late Friday and catching up on paperwork I finally cracked on with the sill removal.

And what a pain it is,  1st job seat out, then you find every part of the old sill is welded to posts etc. and the only easy way I found to remove it was by using a hammer and chisel.

Could not be bothered to take out the other seats, may change my mind once welding starts.   lol

but got there in the end.

Also found a hole and a half (filled by prev. owner using Fiberglas) which will need a repair.

The inner sill seems ok so can be cleaned up and re-used.

Just waiting on the mig welder to continue.


So if your feeling down today and need cheering up have a peek at the pics and be grateful that your not me.

[muky-kid.]

:( My god that brings painful memories back. You see i did the same job on a classic 2dr about 2 years ago. The job from start to finish took about 4 months, ended up replaceing inner/outer sills both sides, both front inner wings, replacement panels were grafted to the bottom of the A posts and B posts, both the footwells were replaced and last but not least the rear cross member. Once this little lot was fitted and welded up, i gave the rangie a good phew coats of black smooth hammerite on chassis and any exposed places underneith i even stripped the hole interior out and did the same inside with matching colour to exterior, rear floor out and fuel tank, Then i covered the underneith with black stone chip spray and painted over that as well. The mud never stuck after all that just simply slipped off. I must admit it did look nice when i finnished the project, Sadly ive only 1 or 2 pictures of it before i sold it to a mate of mine. Who bobtailed it sprayed it bright yellow then got hit by a run away driver and now the rangie is off the road due to an insurance investigation on the runaway driver. A sad story indeed. If a jobs werth doing do it well it will last longer. In the end i added up the receipts and i was shocked at how much ide spent on the thing (its the odds and sods that mount up every old bolt was replaced with new etc).  Good luck with yours it will be worth the blood sweat and tears in the end.

[keithdixon]

thanks for reminding me,

but your right, if it's worth doing it's got to be done.

3 months (tut NO)

got the outer Sill,

the inner Sill is ok, floor panel (below the pedals are to be patched)  reat inner wing (to be patched) the rest is ok

i have to say that it will be patched in such a way as to allow an easy replacement of wings in the future.


(yes my welding is that bad)

but to be honest, i was trained as a maintenance engineer and was taught to do the job properly, so whatever it is do it right then you should never need to revisit

rgs

keith dixon

[muky-kid.]

:D It took 4 months because i only had time to do anything the odd weekend other wise it should have only taken a couple of weeks start to finnish. The only problem was, the more i looked the more rust i found, but thats expected on a neglected 23 year old classic.

[muky-kid.]

:D Here is a picture of my old blue classic after the resto, the white bobtail was my mates and as you can see on pic the amount he had taken of the front and rear.