Just in case you think I’ve been slacking, well I have. In updating this, not in terms of metalwork malarkey. And as last time it was very long winded and complicated, just like the real thing, this time it will be more condensed with just the interesting bits noted. Not that it has been any less complicated though….!

I started cutting the floor out, which was in a complete mess. It was a replacement floor pan on this side, however it had been seam welded to the original cross member and chassis leg from underneath, and it was awful. So was the patching between the floor pan and the original inner step sill, it had been plated over in a bizarre way, resulting in many thicknesses of metal. All of which were rusting, as will any metal surfaces in contact with another with no protection from corrosion.

Erm.. Ok then. This is the offside spring hanger, not the complete lack of heelboard extension piecse and lots of nasty little patches instead. And I have no idea what was going on in front of the spring hanger, with 5 thicknesses of metal where there should just be one, the floorpan...!

What a stupid amount of metal. The finger gives scale (it's a very long finger admittedly) but you can see just how much patching remnants had to be removed, a lot of work in total!

No random hand this time, but there's my foot, look. The last time the floor was replaced, they followed the advice shown in the Haynes restoration manual and just cut out a fair bit of the floorpan and welded the new one over the top of the rest. Resulting in double thicknesses, you can see the way it has been patched to the heelboard....

And suprise suprise, underneath the patches it was rusting badly!

And The A Post needed a bit of work, the bottom two inches diddn't exist.




The rear chassis rail ready for the inner step sill, which is an open C-Section at this point. It's mildly perforated, from drilling out the holes from the old spot welds, and the holes will be used for plug welding. the bottom flat part (without the holes) had to be fabricated from scratch, due to much rot.

I described last time how I hacked the sill out, I did this after the floor but included it in the last post. And with the rear chassis leg and A post/dash side all ready, I fitted the new inner step sill, including temporarily tacking it to the cross member which was due for replacement.

The new inner step sill clamped into place for welding. Note how it fits snugly inside the rear chassis leg. At the front, it is welded to the dash side, but only after the inner and outer sill have been attatched, these go between the step sill and dash side (inside the dash side, not on the outside as per Haynes). Note also the A Post has been repaired, and has been plug then seam welded to the dash side, the welds are yet to be cleaned up and ground down.

Then the Newcasle rail was lined up, clamped into position, tacked into place and the seam weld between it and the step sill was done a short length at a time to avoid heat distortion. Next I welded in the triangular plates as jacking point reinforcesr, not that I would be fitting jacking points but incase I even needed to jack one side up using the cross member. All this was given the usual coats of zinc primer and weld-through primer.

Newcastle rail in place, and primed. The door is in place, for checking alignment. The garage floor is unusually tidy. Fantastic.

Then the inner sill was drilled and plug welded into place, the welds ground down and painted again ready for the outer sill. The outer sill proved to be a bit tricier than the other side. Throughout the process I had the door on and off many times, checking everything was still in alignment.

The inside of the inner sill primed in the usual 2-tone scheme! All of the many holes drilled for plug welding, then the lips created by drilling have been ground away.

The inner sill is in place and the welds have been ground back. Then the outside of the inner sill has been painted, and the inside of the outer sill. Do you see now where all that paint went?

When I lined up the outer sill with the door, and the rest of the sill panels, all seemed well, until I welded it into place and could not get the lower rear edge into place. It seemed to have been badly bent during transit, but I could not correct it and after an hour or two of trying to panel beat it into shape, I eventually gave it up, cut it off and bought another. This fitted perfectly. Wooo! At this point I must mention that about 4lbs of high zinc primer disappeared into the sills! That should be enough protection for starters, it will be added to later by oil or wax injection. The combination of the two types of primer has worked very well, looking into the sills from the rear (The sill end fillers have yet to go in, these will be added when the rear wheel arches are done) very little of the paint has burned off, meaning I have most of 4lbs of zinc paint inside the sills. What a great feeling!
The heelboard extension went easily into place, now I know the trick of how to fit it, but cutting it, altering the shape, then welding it up. It was welded into place at full whack, banging a lot of heat into it and the spring hanger to make a good strong join. It was then neatened up with the grinder, ready for the new floor.

All ready for the floor... look and that nice new sill, loverly new heelboard and lots of weld through primer.

The floor pan, which I accidentally binned and saved at the last minute from ending up at the dump, clonked nicely into place. I tacked it then seamed all the way around, I will also seam it from underneath at the outer edge of the flange for optimum strength and minimum water ingress. All welding from the underside, however, will be done with the car on its side, as welding upwards does not seem to do much for weld quality.

New sills... New floors.... time to take it to the next level! just visible is the third cylinder of Argoshield light, and the heater. Which is sitting on top of the Lister, because it like it there.

And there… hang on…. That was it done! Blimey, a lot quicker than the other side!