Easy sill repair

[comfortablynumb]

Found a July 1969 copy of ‘Car Mechanics’
Who needs welding equipment???😳

[Ritchie]

Magic! What's wrong with that like?

I wonder if he put a downpipe in so the water drains out?

[budgetbond]

Lol yeah good thinking I wonder if a chimney pot would make a good rear silencer if the back box s gone the same way too!!

[marinanut]

Errrmmmmmm.......
Not the best idea, but seeing some of the 'repairs' that programmes like "Pimp My Ride" found in the US, it's quite a good one.... (I was thinking of the US Escort episode that was a cut'n'shut with brass wood screws and filler....)

[pistonpopper]

Isn't this pretty much what car manufactures are doing themselves now? Quite a few of my cars in the last five years or so have had a plastic cover over the sills, no doubt so you can't see them quietly rusting away underneath.

[brc76]

There is a product I ceep seeing here advertised, called bushwacker. Its plastic over covers for rusted pickup trucks. I know they are body on frame construction, but my opinion is that it is still wrong.

www.bushwacker.com/

[stealthstylz]

I've seen a few people round here running UPVC side skirts, funnily enough a few weeks after I fitted mine lol. Get a old UPVC window sill, trim to the shape you want, screw it on where it touches then heat gun and bend the rest in to shape haha.

[chris y]

Dec 14, 2019 11:52:37 GMT stealthstylz said:

I've seen a few people round here running UPVC side skirts, funnily enough a few weeks after I fitted mine lol. Get a old UPVC window sill, trim to the shape you want, screw it on where it touches then heat gun and bend the rest in to shape haha.

Pictures please.

[ratchart]

According to wikipedia (so may not be 100% accurate) from it's introduction in 1960  the MOT test only applied to cars over 10 years old, then 7 and eventually to 3 years old in 1967, so many bodges of this type must have gone unchecked before then. Especially as rustproofing was an alien concept back then.

Standards were probably looser back then so I suppose the sort of "repair" above would have gone unnoticed especially with the obligatory dollop of filler and/or underseal.

[comfortablynumb]

I like the way its ‘Best of the month’!

[skkylinedave]

Almost makes me nostalgic for bodgery. The days are now gone of finding creative bodgery mostly , it's all just tons of filler.
Back in the day you could encounter a myriad of materials and fixings. Wood screws, self tappers, rivets , nails even. Cornflakes packets , newspaper , porn mags , cut and shaped stolen road signs , patches cut from washing machines , those bodgy kits of fibreglass with aluminium resin , window putty , concrete and even clothing including a filthy pair of skidders.
I have found all of the above and to be honest find it hilarious what people have used.

[generally01]

Bet he thinks he is dead clever. Wait until autumn when he has to get a ladder and clear the leaves out his sill.

[igor]

Dec 14, 2019 11:13:41 GMT pistonpopper said:

Isn't this pretty much what car manufactures are doing themselves now? Quite a few of my cars in the last five years or so have had a plastic cover over the sills, no doubt so you can't see them quietly rusting away underneath.

I'm inclined to think that these cars will rust out faster than they ordinarily would have since the area behind the plastic cover holds dirt, and in your part of the world salt, and never gets dry.

[steveo3002]

this is how to repair a sill

[dikkehemaworst]

Really thought he would fit a tree in his sill, but hey,it became a proper bodge!
That will outlast the rest of the car.
But why the hell is he pouring liquid asphalt over his wiringloom after all this trouble..

[stealthstylz]

Dec 14, 2019 12:02:22 GMT chris y said:

Dec 14, 2019 11:52:37 GMT stealthstylz said:

I've seen a few people round here running UPVC side skirts, funnily enough a few weeks after I fitted mine lol. Get a old UPVC window sill, trim to the shape you want, screw it on where it touches then heat gun and bend the rest in to shape haha.

Pictures please.

I'll take some when I put them back on again. Because the car is so low they had the interesting effect of trapping all the standing water I have to go through on the A1 underneath the car so it aquaplaned on the floorpan same as my Granada used to. Took them off and I can tram through it at 85mph without issue same as before I fitted them so they're staying off for the winter.

[dodgerover]

Dec 14, 2019 12:42:20 GMT ratchart said:

According to wikipedia (so may not be 100% accurate) from it's introduction in 1960  the MOT test only applied to cars over 10 years old, then 7 and eventually to 3 years old in 1967, so many bodges of this type must have gone unchecked before then. Especially as rustproofing was an alien concept back then.

Standards were probably looser back then so I suppose the sort of "repair" above would have gone unnoticed especially with the obligatory dollop of filler and/or underseal.

It's not really that long ago that a pop rivetted on cover sill was a perfectly acceptable MOT repair!

[comfortablynumb]

Dec 15, 2019 21:54:28 GMT dodgerover said:

Dec 14, 2019 12:42:20 GMT ratchart said:

According to wikipedia (so may not be 100% accurate) from it's introduction in 1960  the MOT test only applied to cars over 10 years old, then 7 and eventually to 3 years old in 1967, so many bodges of this type must have gone unchecked before then. Especially as rustproofing was an alien concept back then.

Standards were probably looser back then so I suppose the sort of "repair" above would have gone unnoticed especially with the obligatory dollop of filler and/or underseal.

It's not really that long ago that a pop rivetted on cover sill was a perfectly acceptable MOT repair!

You’re showing your age there, and making me realise mine!

[heavyspanners]

I have a 1970 edition of the AA Book Of The Car (an all-purpose motoring manual) which gives step-by-step instructions on how to repair a rusty sill with filler and chicken wire.

The car they're using for the demonstration seems to to be a Jaguar Mk 2, which I suppose in 1970 was a cheap old banger. I don't know how structural the outer sill is on a Jag Mk 2 - I seem to remember there's a fairly hefty inner sill, so you might get away with it. But this would be a real bodge on many other cars. There's no mention at all of the need to retain structural strength.

Still, I have to admit I've done a few repairs like this over the years. It's nice to know that my bodgery had the AA seal of approval!

[Rich]

Jan 8, 2020 10:06:51 GMT heavyspanners said:

There's no mention at all of the need to retain structural strength.

Try reading the first image caption