I got underneath the car to do some sealing and rust preventative and managed to make 2 holes using the wire brush and a paintbrush covered in underseal.....

Can anyone advise me where to source section of panel I need ?

I want to cut out section and replace.......

I am trying to track down anyone I know who can weld.....

I am going to clean area up later with drill and wire brush to see how far the rot has crept......

Is this sill section or floorpan?

any idea of thickness of metal to use to make replacement section if I can't get replacement?

 

I even thought about aluminium mesh and JB weld for about half an hour......( I was a bit depressed when finding this so please forgive me!)......lol

 

I am getting more and more upset finding how many things need doing now.......

Edited August 27, 201312 yr by veilside01702

View from inside of what I am faced with....

Is the floorpan usually welded to the inner sill?

Mine has a gap of about 3mm where the car took a major side impact and buckled the floorpan. They replaced the entire inner and outer sill, but just beat the floor as straight as they could and seam sealed and left it with splits that have now rotted through...

They covered these with seam sealer and underseal by the look of it.....

A leaky roof and 6 years sitting outside have left moisture sitting on the already damaged floorpan and helped it rot away....

I am going to spot weld the inner sill to the floorpan bit by bit and try to knock it all back to shape.... out comes my dolly and shrinking hammer.....lol

I think the floor plate only attaches to the inner sill (the one you can see on the inside of the car, so in your pic).

 

Based on my own experience, the inner membrane simply goes top to bottom. I could be wrong, but I didn't have a lot to go on as you can see (below). I guess there is no harm in taking the floor plate to the inner membrane and then folding it down into the join at the bottom, but to be honest I really don't think you need to, especially for such a small area.

 

 

 

 

This isn't a Zed, it might help -

 

Edited July 21, 201312 yr by MasterCookieman

I thought this was more like a 300zx sill?

Yep, those are better diagrams!

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

 

If you page down near to the bottom of this page, you will be able to make out how the floor meets the sills in the picture marked " Scary "

I know it is the drivers side, but should give you a good idea. Hope it helps.

Well I made some plates up and ground out all the rotten metal.....

I made a patch that fitted the bent and buckled floor. I just made a piece that went over the buckled bit and fitted flush round the edges...

Looked great, tacked it on and then started to blow holes in what's left of the floorpan.....lol

I had the welder set the same as I had in setup and practice pieces and all i got was spatter and holes....

I ground down my cock ups and tried again... Some of the small holes have been filled with weld and ground down flat again, so most of the holes are filled with weld....

I welded inside the car to make life easier and beat the floorpan to touch the replacement plate above it...

I then welded from underneath, joining the holes to the plate. Working round the edges of the holes so it is now one piece...

The welding did not go well and looks rough....

So I am going to grind down the welds and try to tidy up and do a lot more practice tomorrow....

I ground out the jacking point and found it is the closing plate of the inner seal that has rotted....

I have a new piece folded and cut to size, but now I am extremely nervous to try and weld this on....

I am going to try to get the area nice and clean before I try welding anything again. I need to use a narrow wire brush on the drill to be able to get to the bits I need to weld up....

I am also going to degrease the fabricated panel again to make sure it is really clean.

Back to square one.... I even tried to find a welder locally to do this, but don't want anyone seeing my bodge job, so bottled it.....lol

What's best way to attach the replacement panel I made?

Plug weld it or try to tack it on?

Sorry everyone that has advised me..... I need more practice...

Russ

Hi mate,

 

I tried welding my old shell and I ended up scraping it. And im now in the middle of putting all my bits on a new shell.

I can weld pretty good, just not old cars lol, and then if your fussy like me and want it to look like its not welded.

I ground the welds to much and then had to cut it out and put a bigger patch in.

I spent the whole winter doing this to scrap it.

 

I hope u sort it mate but welding is a pain in the f@#king a@#e...

 

U can pick a rust free shell up for couple hundred quid, take a torch and look in rear quarters, sills etc and find one with no rust...

 

The one I have theres no rust, not even surface rust in rear quarters and cost me couple hundred.

 

Once they start rusting unless u cut them to bits the way I see it there just gonna keep rusting..

 

Trust me to put a downer on it but after 6months of welding and grinding, burns everywhere I for one wont be doing it again lol....

Hi mate,

 

I tried welding my old shell and I ended up scraping it. And im now in the middle of putting all my bits on a new shell.

I can weld pretty good, just not old cars lol, and then if your fussy like me and want it to look like its not welded.

I ground the welds to much and then had to cut it out and put a bigger patch in.

I spent the whole winter doing this to scrap it.

 

I hope u sort it mate but welding is a pain in the f@#king a@#e...

 

U can pick a rust free shell up for couple hundred quid, take a torch and look in rear quarters, sills etc and find one with no rust...

 

The one I have theres no rust, not even surface rust in rear quarters and cost me couple hundred.

 

Once they start rusting unless u cut them to bits the way I see it there just gonna keep rusting..

 

Trust me to put a downer on it but after 6months of welding and grinding, burns everywhere I for one wont be doing it again lol....

:hang:.......Now I am depressed......lol

NO I WILL LEARN TO WELD OLD METAL...... lol

I too can weld nice shiny new metal, I just turn old metal into swiss cheese....lol

Is it okay to fill the blown out metal with nice splattery weld and then grind it flat?

I will not start again with a new shell........Noooooooooo

I will be okay after this is all welded, Honest, Really.....I shall be anal and spray dinitrol everywhere and paint hammerite and undersell all over the bottom.......lol

Anyone near me good at welding want to do this for me????????????

I can get the welds ok but its the grinding that gets me i try to grind it to flush.

 

Think it all depends on the finish u want, if u want invisible repairs then u need someone who restores cars, I done a gto at work the other day failed its mot so I just welded a patch over it, ground it a tiny bit and stone chipped it.

Which is all he wanted and got it through its mot, but to me it wasn't done properly.

 

Some people can do it easy Im crap lol, im a mechanic, bodywork I just take forever and mess up.

Stick with it mate, it took me over a year to get all the welding done on my Zed, I'd never used a MIG welder before

but was given a helping hand on how to do it by someone who had been through it all before with his own Zed.

 

By the time that I'd finished ......my welding had definitely improved (mind you - that wouldn't have been too difficult).

 

Make sure that you cut back to clean metal - if you can find any - and don't try to be a perfectionist, as long as it's solid...it'll do :smash:

Stick with it mate, it took me over a year to get all the welding done on my Zed, I'd never used a MIG welder before

but was given a helping hand on how to do it by someone who had been through it all before with his own Zed.

 

By the time that I'd finished ......my welding had definitely improved (mind you - that wouldn't have been too difficult).

 

Make sure that you cut back to clean metal - if you can find any - and don't try to be a perfectionist, as long as it's solid...it'll do :smash:

My problem is I am trying to get it perfect and getting frustrated when it doesn't look as nice as it would if a professional did the work....lol

I know the panel I did looks a mess, but it won't come off, just created a few more holes doing it that has annoyed me now....

Practice, Practice, Practice.....

Going to go and have a practice again now.......lol

Sounds like you are having one of your many low points in the quest to achieve a rust free zed. It's just a matter of stepping back and thinking about what went wrong. So long as you do not get too carried away with the grinder, all is retrievable.

 

As for adding new metal to old there are a few things that I found made a big difference. Firstly, you have to be 100% certain that you cut back to pure rust free metal, any hint of corrosion will cause you to blow through. Also, try cleaning the metal where you aim to cut with paint stripper so as to avoid thinning the metal which can happen easily when grinding the metal clean. Once you are sure you have reached good metal, clean the surrounding edge thoroughly and then buff with course emery so as to open up the surface of the metal.

 

The aim is to make the 2 pieces of metal look virtually identical. I would then look at setting your welder to the lowest power setting available, 15 amps is ideal but a good thin metal weld is still possible with slightly More amps. I would try welding in a small test piece first to see how you get on before welding in the repair panel. Use a series of single tacks about an inch appart to start with. Worth trying so as to see what a diffence it makes.

Sounds like you are having one of your many low points in the quest to achieve a rust free zed. It's just a matter of stepping back and thinking about what went wrong. So long as you do not get too carried away with the grinder, all is retrievable.

 

As for adding new metal to old there are a few things that I found made a big difference. Firstly, you have to be 100% certain that you cut back to pure rust free metal, any hint of corrosion will cause you to blow through. Also, try cleaning the metal where you aim to cut with paint stripper so as to avoid thinning the metal which can happen easily when grinding the metal clean. Once you are sure you have reached good metal, clean the surrounding edge thoroughly and then buff with course emery so as to open up the surface of the metal.

 

The aim is to make the 2 pieces of metal look virtually identical. I would then look at setting your welder to the lowest power setting available, 15 amps is ideal but a good thin metal weld is still possible with slightly More amps. I would try welding in a small test piece first to see how you get on before welding in the repair panel. Use a series of single tacks about an inch appart to start with. Worth trying so as to see what a diffence it makes.

Thanks for that, I shall be using your advice later on today.... Going to clean up metal and see if that helps..... The welder only has high or low and variable wire speed....

I read about using a brass heatsink behind the weld to stop blowing through the material on the mig welding forum... So might try that on practtice piece....

I am guessing I didn't get the old metal clean enough and may have got carried away with the flapper wheel trying to clean off the old paint....

Loads of prep work today before I try to weld anything...

Thanks again Redwine300.... Your experience is greatly appreciated

And thanks to everyone who is helping with the advice....

Well didn't get to do anything yet.... But tomorrow is 'D' day. Have day to get the welding sorted out, so had a clean of the floorpan with parts cleaner degreaser the other day on some clean cloth and couldn't believe what came off where I thought it was already clean...

Going to give it a buff with course emery cloth as redwine300 suggested. The floor looks polished now all rust ground out and clean.

I have drilled a few holes on repair panel in places that I can try to plug weld and then start tack welding and joining them up slowly to stop any warping...

I am also going to try to fill the holes I blew the other day with some weld.... and grind it back...

 

Where does the targa drain normally come out?

I can't find it anywhere..... I wanted to move it....

Well rain has stopped play, yet again it is persisting down.......Oh the joys of not being able to get car in your garage to work on her.....lol

Hopefully it will stop later and I can actually go out and weld or grind something and not electrocute myself in the process......

I hate Sun, I hate Rain, I hate wind, bahhhh humbug........

You need to learn to tig weld and then wash in your welds then terry lol.

You need to learn to tig weld and then wash in your welds then terry lol.

who's terry?

tig cap over a mig run is not fun ! i can tell you that for nohting

Well N/S front floor pan and sill are finally welded up, ground down, sealed and now painted with a zinc primer.........

I have been busy today......

I took on board all the advice you have all given me and started well..... I firstly treated inside the sill with hammerite no.1 rust beater spray that I could get to and wouldn't be where I was welding...

I plug welded one end and tapped metal into shape one plug weld at a time... till it looked neat and all edges were nicely touching the original good metal....

I then started tacking the panel in centre and worked it outward making sure i kept panel flush with original sill section as i worked. I used 2 50mm G clamps to hop the repair section to the sill as I went...

I got through 3 disposable bottles of gas. I also managed to fill the blowout holes from the last attempt, following the advice you all gave me. I started from the edges and worked inward and actually managed to fill all the holes and ground them down.... they actually disappeared...yay...

I ground everything down that looked like it had little or no penetration from the other day and started again. I had a couple of blips today, but stopped for a cuppa, ground it back and started again, refreshed. It went better than I expected!

I used some quick steel on the inside floorpan and seam between the sill and floorpan to replace the seam sealer and fill the gap where the sill and floor were accident damaged. It actually looks nice on the inside now after I painted the floorpan with the zinc undercoat / primer.

This is what I ended up with......

underneath....

before

after

inside....

before

after

 

I still need to grind the inside welds as they look awful... but that is saturday or sunday's work.... and I nearly set light to the carpet last time I tried.... I am going to use a damp towel as someone else suggested to cover the carpet...

But it is all solid and in one piece again...

Now all I need to do is the same to the drivers side.......here we go again....lol

Edited August 1, 201312 yr by veilside01702

It looks good! I wouldn't worry too much about grinding the welds down, as the carpet will cover them, though I understand, as I'd do the same. As long as it's strong; that's the main thing! :)

It looks good! I wouldn't worry too much about grinding the welds down, as the carpet will cover them, though I understand, as I'd do the same. As long as it's strong; that's the main thing! :)

I can't leave it.....lol.... It's like an OCD.... I would be thinking about it every minute of the day till I ended up pulling up the carpet and doing it.....lol

I can't leave it.....lol.... It's like an OCD.... I would be thinking about it every minute of the day till I ended up pulling up the carpet and doing it.....lol

 

 

LOL, yes, I totally understand! I've spent way too much time on some things making things perfect and no one will ever see them! I'll know though!

Did you relocate the targa drains? Because they drain out of the sill itself just where the wing bolts on.

Did you relocate the targa drains? Because they drain out of the sill itself just where the wing bolts on.

I have been trying to find them.... I am gonna have to take targa off and pour some water down holes to find ends.....

Apparently its a preformed/pressed section in the sill. The pipe just drains into the sill and gravity does the rest.