Job tonight is fixing the push rod hole. Pulled the welder out and setup
Pretty colours
Looks messy but I went to town with adding material to make sure there was no empty pocket in the middle when I clean this all up
Ten minutes with the flap disc on the outside and grinding disc on the inside
Drill holes. A tad larger than I'd like but then my Lidl pillar drill was cheap and it's chuck wobbles around a bit.
Quick spray of Poundland paint. Awful stuff but hopefully good enough for this
While that was drying, I then made the mistake at poking the front of the drivers sill.
All this was done with fingers poking and pulling.
Hard to tell from these pictures but unfortunately I think whoever did these sills last, simply welded them over the top of the old. Certainly at this front section.
Blue bit is the outer. Just below that is another outer. Thin piece in the middle is the strengthener.
This got me a bit worried so I went poking further down. Thankfully the rest seems solid still at the moment.
I shone the torch through the new hole in the front and had a peak through this hole on the inner sill.
Looking up I think you can see the outer sill welded at the top.
Looking down at the bottom of the sill, it appears the inner membrane is still attached to the inner and outer sills.
So hopefully it's just that front bit that I need to fix and not do a whole sill replacement. Had enough of doing that on the 1100 sills! It's a small and simple enough repair that I'm hoping I can get away with fabricating something out of some sheet steel. I'm just hoping that there is enough clean and decent metal behind there to weld onto.
I need to inspect further down at some point. I'll get my cheapy snake cam down inside the sill and hopefully see better what state it is in. If it has had a replacement sill welded over the top, I'd like to chop the whole length of the sill off and redo it properly. However with a hopeful house move soon, that won't be happening this side of Christmas. It'll have to make do with cutting a bit out, a patch welded on and a bit of paint to cover up.
I'm just glad I didn't cancel my BOC gas contract!