Whilst out today fixing a hole in my sump and painting some of the underbody, I prodded what I though was just loose flaky rust, next thing I know I have a huge gaping hole along the whole sill.

 

I have skirts on, so its hard to tell, if this is the side of the sill or the actual bottom of the sill itself.

 

So...three questions -

 

1 - Is this fixable, can it be welded and if it can be welded, is it a huge job costing many hundreds?

 

2 - If welding is possible, will the skirt need removing?

 

3 - How safe is this, is my drivers side floor likely to drop out; killing me?

 

Thanks all.

 

yes

yes

and yes

Sorry mate but that looks like it's gone, that isn't even your sill, that's your floorpan and chassis! Basically that big gaping hole is the bit a new sill would weld to. I don't even know if you'd be able to find a mechanic who'd be willing to weld that, because after the cleanup to get some clean metal to weld to, the gap is likely to be mahoosive! I'd buy another Z, transplant and break.

 

I spent over £2000 in parts and labour replacing both my sills, including cutting them out, cleaning it up, minor repairs to the support panel behind the sill and then painting etc. But my floorpan was perfect and needed nothing doing to it, I hate to think what's behind the skirt :(

Thats the problem with having full wrap round skirts fitted, becomes a water trap and ends up eventually like you have discovered.

It looks bad in the pics, probably as bad in the metal, but i would say the skirts would need to come off to have the sill replaced, you dont know what else is hiding behind the skirts, looks like a fair bit of welding needs to be done.

I would try and find a mobile welder to come out and give you a price as they tend to have no overheads and work for themselves, normally get a better job for a better price.

Thats the problem with having full wrap round skirts fitted, becomes a water trap and ends up eventually like you have discovered.

It looks bad in the pics, probably as bad in the metal, but i would say the skirts would need to come off to have the sill replaced, you dont know what else is hiding behind the skirts, looks like a fair bit of welding needs to be done.

I would try and find a mobile welder to come out and give you a price as they tend to have no overheads and work for themselves, normally get a better job for a better price.

 

My welding only cost me £100 per side, the sills cost me nearly £1000 for front and rear pieces for both sides and as I said before, the floor pan is going.

My welding only cost me £100 per side, the sills cost me nearly £1000 for front and rear pieces for both sides and as I said before, the floor pan is going.

 

:eek: is that a typo error

:eek: is that a typo error

 

Nope!

 

Although it was £800+ I can't remember the exact price.

its not just the skirts though. looks like the floor pan has had it most of the way up too. depends how much you love ther car. fix or replace............

 

and thats only what can be seen:(....everthing is weldable its iff its financily viable is the question

This is a sad day. If I couldn't fix her I think she go as spares and repairs as I'm moving back to a location where I'd likely find her keyed, tyres slashed and a brick through the window after a couple weeks.

 

Annoying thing is the other side is fine, the subframes look good, generally the rest of the car looks fine, arms and well pretty much everything is 'solid'. You're right though, something even worse than this could be lurking under the skirts...

 

I'll get a quote, but guess I wont hold my breath for good news. :(

This is a sad day. If I couldn't fix her I think she go as spares and repairs as I'm moving back to a location where I'd likely find her keyed, tyres slashed and a brick through the window after a couple weeks.Annoying thing is the other side is fine, the subframes look good, generally the rest of the car looks fine, arms and well pretty much everything is 'solid'. You're right though, something even worse than this could be lurking under the skirts...

 

I'll get a quote, but guess I wont hold my breath for good news. :(

 

think you need an ex MOD troop carrier anyway mate:laugh:

The one advantage you'd have over me and others replacing sills, is that you could just get any old piece of steel welded in place for the sills, as you've got the sideskirts to hide it, where I don't, so had to buy genuine sill panels. You do however have the floorpan issue, looking next to the gaping hole you can see rust developing really far into the floor pan, which means all of that will need to be cut out before welding, or it's just a waste of time.

 

Obviously the choice is yours, but I was nervous about replacing my sills with genuine nissan panels designed to do the job, if my floorpan hadn't been solid, the car would have been scrapped, because welding a floorpan is something I just wouldn't trust, unless that was a genuine part too :(

As ive learnt to my expense getting sills welded was bad enough but then theres the expence of making things look pretty after i ditched the skirts.Welding paintwork etc cost me around £1500.Good luck hope you can sort something.

The one advantage you'd have over me and others replacing sills, is that you could just get any old piece of steel welded in place for the sills, as you've got the sideskirts to hide it, where I don't, so had to buy genuine sill panels. You do however have the floorpan issue, looking next to the gaping hole you can see rust developing really far into the floor pan, which means all of that will need to be cut out before welding, or it's just a waste of time.

 

Obviously the choice is yours, but I was nervous about replacing my sills with genuine nissan panels designed to do the job, if my floorpan hadn't been solid, the car would have been scrapped, because welding a floorpan is something I just wouldn't trust, unless that was a genuine part too :(

 

 

MJP does sills and inner sills for around £180 per side, where on earth did you get yours from, and his are genuine.

 

Sill will be £142.77 + VAT if I order tomorrow. Nissan price revisions will apply from 1st September...Will be 3 weeks, ex-Japan.

I have a LH reinforcement, 76425-30P00, in stock £35 + VAT

 

Carriage £7.95 + VAT

 

 

But yes its fix able and any competent welder will be able to sort that out, nothing wrong with getting the floor pan done if done correctly, very savable, but the side skirt will have to be removed.

 

I know of a few restoration jobs that have had to basically fabricate the whole underside of the car to restore a classic, as said if done properly nothing to it, the metal will be just as strong as when it rolled out of the factory.

 

But as bri already said, it would be more dependant on whether its financially viable.

If you can get someone competent with metal then even doing the floor pan is possible. I had to do some of the floor on mine as well as sills both side, front to back.

If you can get a mobile welder to come do it for you thrn the cost is halved.

the metal to replace it is cheap, for all my work it cost me less than £20 on steel sheets. The welding was £280 all in.

You will deffinatley need to remove your skirt tho to allow proper access.

Hope you fix it cos it looks a nice car.

No one else noticed the skirts are smoothed in on the rear :(

 

Another expensive job to sort out :(

Wouldn't you have to completely strip the interior to weld the floorpan?

 

I would have a much more thorough prod around - if the sills look like that then the boot/fuel tank and rear bumper areas could be just as bad. I wouldn't repair it - it would play on my mind too much when driving.

 

Really gutted for you chief, from above the car/sills look really good.

 

Bummer

MJP does sills and inner sills for around £180 per side, where on earth did you get yours from, and his are genuine.

 

I bought mine from MJP and your post shows you've clearly never had to do this job Ian. That is one side, for one piece of sill, add those together, then add on the rear section of the sill, which is not a genuine part, it gets made up by a guy in Scarborough on MJPs request, then add to that the fact that this particular car will need the inner sills as well AND the floor pan repairing, AND god knows what else because of the state of it, no, it most likely isn't repairable and it certainly isn't going to cost less than £1K let alone a few hundred quid. Notice RustySills also says around £1500 to get his done.

Out of curiosity how safe or unsafe is this?

to drive like it is. i would say unsafe mate. you might get away with driving it but should an accident happen i wouldent like to think how the car would fair up let alone you:(

 

Not to mention that this is structural, it will fail an MOT and if a VOSA or police officer pulls you over and looks, you'll have the car confiscated and receive a lovely big fine, with points on your licence to boot. Also there is considerable risk if you were taking a corner too fast, the car could just bend and actually cause an accident. Personally I'd never trust a car again if the floor got like that, but you can probably get it to a standard that is MOTable and considered safe by law, but no matter what anyone says, it will not be cheap.

sad to say this one is probally a finacial write off. with time and money it can be done, but as everyones said its pretty far gone. surprised they didnt pick anythin up on the last mot. thats been rotting for a fair while.

The link below might help you with your decision,

Mine was very similar. :excl:

It was a matter of "do it myself" or give up on ever owning a Z.:no:

4 years later I am back up and running.:w00t: worth the wait.:thumbup1:

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=15465

I went through this my Zed, what started as a few holes needing patched up - rapidly developed into me having to cut open both sills (front to rear) and remove a substantial amount of badly corroded inner sills and floor edge.

 

Replaced mostly with panels that I fabricated from sheet steel (not pretty but served the purpose). Unfortunately, both rear wheelarches (outer and inner) also needed replaced, both inner and outer quarter panels needed a lot of work as well.

 

There always seemed to be more rust, if it's confined to that one area - you're lucky. Have a close look, be critical, check behind the fuel filler neck.

 

I did most of the work myself but had a garage to work in and another car to get about in - it was off the road for well over 18 months tho'.

 

I hope that you get it sorted out - one way or the other.

 

Andy

Yeah it's worth pointing out here that the main reason I wrote it off in words, is because I had a similar, but thankfully not quite as large an experience as CrashCourse.

 

I kept finding more, thankfully only little bits though, a little on the boot crease still needs sorting, my tailgate needs replacing but I have the replacement tailgate which just needs painting and wiring etc. I had to rip out both sills, front and rear and re-shape my arch after cutting the rust out, thankfully it wasn't so bad that I had to replace the entire arch.

 

Essentially my car has had 3 or 4 times what I spent buying it, spent on it, was it worth it? I'm not sure, I'm still waiting for parts that I ordered months ago (No one person is responsible for that before anyone takes offence), some parts I've bought have been crap and should never have been bought, so my car still isn't on proper coilovers, it still hasn't had it's engine sorted properly, it still hasn't been fully re-sprayed, it still hasn't been undersealed etc.

 

Is my car now worth £4k? Probably not. Do I think about selling/scrapping it? Yes, all the time actually. Every time I drive it I decide not to, which is why I drive it every day, if it ****s up again, which the engine is threatening to because it BADLY needs the top end rebuilt, it'll probably get scrapped, because I just don't have £10K a year to plough into a car that's not even worth £3K.

I've just done this job matey, my skirts were blended in so there was no way of removing them,

 

i cut a huge chunk out of the rear wheel arch so i could see the damage all inside the sills, not good at all, i then had to weld in that tight space

 

as stated on here it didnt have to be the tidiest of jobs as you dont see the sills at all but the most important thing is that there structurally sound,

 

brace yourself when you first cut into your sill for a look as my inner sills were non existant, and then having to cut back again into good steel for welding onto,

 

i was able to do this job myself as i do a lot of welding at work, also my father is in the bodyshop so he gave me some tips,

 

one thing i had to do was cut a section out of the bottom of the side skirt, i was able to repair this and spray it and is now un noticable, i will try to get some pics up if you like,

it is possible to repair as i used my own steel thicker gauge

 

a body shop to do it would be quite expensive i would say, any help matey just let me know

For the hassle ball ache and purely the fact of knowing there is so much welding on the acr I would buy another car and transplant your stuff fella, Sorry to see its so bad..

I take it this is a UK spec by the looks of that rust?

 

SCRAP IT!

 

Better in the long run