July 2009
Front door pillars hinge mounts repair
The A pillars were rusted through around the hinge mounts and also on the bottom where welded to the sills. We patched to reinforced around the door mounts and grinded to smooth finish.
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| Passenger side - template shapes marked with pencil to cut through. | Cutting the rusted pieces. | |||
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| Now prepared for welding. | New patches in place. | |||
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| Small hole close to the sill was just Mig welded. | The driver side. Same procedure used. | |||
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| Hole was bigger on this side and needs some metal patch. | Finalized drivers side door pillar. Grinded with angle grinder on flat surfaces and straight grinder on curved shapes in the bottom. | |||
Front frame rails
Front frame rails, the right side especially was in very bad shape and thick metal profile looks like an emental cheese. This was caused by the small hit on the front as well by absolutely no anti rust protection which Ford do not applied . I decided to nearly complete exchange of the left frame rail. Before cutting any metal I reinforced the engine compartment to keep the parts geometry in right order.
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| I used metal profiles to secure the shock tower, cross member and strut rod brackets. This should retain the body geometry after cutting the left frame rail. | The side piece of the frame has been drilled. I used the pneumatic chisel to cut the factory spot welds. | |||
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| View of the bad condition of the inner frame rail. | I decided to open the passenger side torque box. Tha water inside make the cover metal thinner than expected from the outside. | |||
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| Full view of the opened left frame rail with torque box. | ||||
Continue next month...