Welding sills on a cavalier

[New POD]

It has been suggested that I scrap our 20 year old cavalier, but it goes, and I decided that it would definetely, fail the next MOT in July for rust on the sills.

Now it has had 3 plates on the left hand sill, over the last 3 MOT's and it was these that were now falling off, so I decided I'd do it myself.

Bought a full sill for £22, got my gasless hobby mig some new wire. bought some cutting and grinding discs, and borrowed a joggler, and tin snips. and bought a hibbler.

What a day of emotion and terror, whilst the Nation was celebrating the jubilee. (Wifey went shopping with daughter)

After 3 hours I had a 3 foot long hole, which had extended into the Wheel arch.

2 hours later, I'd got the new sill cut (left the front end alone, as solid) and drilled, and clamped.

3 hours later I'm starting to rebuild the bottom of the arch with bits from the front of the sill that I hadn't used.

Half an hour with some filler, to make it look nice.

half an hour tidying up.

Now I can hardly move.

Just need to sand the filler and apply black hammerite (lol) to make it look really st.

Does anyone want to have me put in a mental institution for my own safety.

What ever money I saved, my wife spent on a pair of shoes costing £140, a nice dress and some bra's for the daughter. She spent £350 not including lunch and parking. About the value of a cavalier with a full MOT ?

[HustleRussell]

That's not the point, you've saved a mint example of a rare and desirable car from the scrap heap!

[New POD]

HustleRussell said:

That's not the point, you've saved a mint example of a rare and desirable car from the scrap heap!

Rare ? Blue with Blue Interior? and a 1.8 Carb 8V ? and astra GTE 14 inch alloys ? Yes Very Rare.

[New POD]

Having sorted the sill, I spent a little while sorting the hand brake, which lead to me seeing another hole at the back of the sill, inside the rear wheel arch, in a place that's very hard to get at.

So today I made a plate which wrapped around from the bottom of the inner arch, and round to the inner sill, and then round to the bottom of the sill. Whilst trying to find shinny metal to weld to I created another hole in the inner arch where oh more rust just fell out, so Now I have a series if plates all seam welded together like a fking jigsaw covering all the holes, and hopefully all the rust is gone. I've applied thick black gunge to it all.

MOT on Monday.

I wonder what it'll fail on. Probably the 20 year old shocks maybe ?

The other sill looks brand new which is odd.

[New POD]

Emissions, a small hole on the drivers side arch, headlamp aim, and hand brake.

One service, a little filler, and further cable adjustment, and.


It now has an MOT, but I do intend to repair the back half of the drivers side sill, and part of the arch over the summer. Have a better bonnet to go on too.