Rover2000TC Repair

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georgecook

Member
Hello.. First time on the forum
I bought my 1972 2000TC a couple of months ago. It has an MOT and was "a good solid car with all welding done". It looked OK, I knew some work was required, but it was only when I removed the outer sills.............I know, I know, I know most of the contributors to this forum have been through the same nightmare, but it is still a shock to the system Whoever said that it is not possible to weld rusty metal should have a look at this car. Rusty patches of steel welded to rusty metal welded to rusty metal.
Anyway, I am sure you have heard all of this before a number of times
I ordered a couple of replacement inner sills from Wadhams (good service) and am in the process of fitting the right side unit to the car. I have decided to work on the right side only leaving the left side for reference until the right side is finished. I have removed and replaced all of the rusty inner parts of the box sections sections with new steel patches , its a very slow process but currently I am enjoying the process, lets hope this continues.
I would appreciate the assistance of the forum with a couple of questions
How are the replacement door tread plates fitted ?( I believe they were factory fitted to the inner sills with spot welds) unless they are spot welded to the sills before the sills are welded in place it is beyond my welding capabilities to spot weld them with the sill in place ie upside down welding.
What method is used to rust proof the sill box section before enclosing it with the inner sill?
Regards George
 
Hi George, welcome along. Have a look at this thread viewtopic.php?f=21&t=4688&hilit=sawdust#wrap. The guy did a great job of dissecting the sills by drilling out the spot welds and he also rebuilt it using the Wadhams sills. You plug weld the sill halves together then plug weld the tread plate over the top of the same join. Most of it is covered up with the stainless finisher and the door seals so it doesn't have to be pretty.

Personally I cut mine off along the circular indents and overlapped them by 10mm and then just repaired the outer edge of the tread plates where the seal channel is attached, see below.



 
georgecook said:
What method is used to rust proof the sill box section before enclosing it with the inner sill?
Click to expand...

I paint the inside of anything that won't get too hot (ie big box sections) with etch primer before welding them in and leave holes all over to spray more primer inside after welding using a straw on the paint can instead of the spray nozzle. Any overlapped sections are covered in zinc weld through primer before welding in - get the U-Pol stuff in the green can.
 
Many thanks for your response. I have made a few mistakes in my enthusiasm to move things along. One of these was to hack off the door treads with the grinder whilst removing the sill. I had a look at the welding on your response and it looks good and strong and seems to be the way to go.
Regarding rust proofing the box sections , I painted two coats of hammerite onto the Wadham bare metal sills prior to trying to welding in place However when I applied the weld through primer ( is it any good?) to the sill, it immediately started to react with the hammerite, so Today's job is to remove all traces of the hammerite from the sills and repaint the sills with what?. Should it be etch primer, ordinary primer or epoxy primer... can hammerite be applied successfully onto any of these primers.
Regards Georgecook
 
I just use etch primer from a spray can on the internal surfaces and I should have added before that I spray cavity wax over the top of that after welding.

I've never had a paint reaction between etch primer and weld through primer. I paint all the outside surfaces with Epoxy Mastic 121 which is expensive but is very tough and I also spray cavity wax over the top of that too rather than using underseal.
 
Thanks Paul ..will use the etch primer and waxoyl inside the box sections plus plenty of drilled holes to enable me to top up on a regular basis. On the external surfaces, do you use the epoxy 121 then waxoyl and then seam sealer, or is the seam sealer applied before the waxoyl.....Apologies for all of these questions which are perhaps just basic carcraft to someone such as yourself. This is the first time that I have carried out such panel replacement and cutting and welding in my life. My basic aim with the Rover is to enable it to last for another 40 years, hopefully
Regards George
 
Hi, I don't normally get snobbish about this sort of thing but hammerite is not for cars. Hammerite
is for painting rusty metal in the garden, it certainly doesn't stick to clean metal, it just chips or
flakes off. There are plenty of better products as said above. Rant over.

Waxoyl goes on last as it is an oil and paint wont stick to it.

Colin
 
Colin..point taken re the hammerite. I will put it back on the garage shelf, its a big tin too. I'm off to Hanford for a few cans of etch primer
Regards George
 
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