Repairing the Rust
With all the corroded and damaged areas on the front end identified, it was time to start chopping out the rust and
welding in some nice new metal!
The first job I tackled was repairing the cracks by the lower bulkhead front subframe mounts and fitting some reinforcing plates to prevent that happening again.
With the rust all wire brushed off the inside, I gave it all a couple of coats of Bilt Hamber Etchweld to protect the metal that would be trapped between the reinforcing plates and the bulkhead once they were welded in place and therefore unable to get painted. It's great stuff, and very highly recommended - I've used a lot of Bilt- Hamber stuff, and never been anything other than very impressed with it. I then measured up the area for the plates, and started cutting steel! (I'd been looking forward to this part for wuite some time). The plates go right into the seam between the bulkhead and floorpan (as did the original plates) and I notched the plates to fit in around the hollows where the steering rack mounts bolt on to allow me to get the biggest plates possible in (see below) - the bigger the plates, the more they'll spread the load, and the less likely a repeat of the cracking...
With the plate measured and trimmed to fit, I marked round the edge and then removed the plate. Next job was to
pre-drill the holes in the bulkhead for the
plug welds
that would hold the centre of the plate to the bulkhead in addition to the seam welds to go round the edges. I just
drew up a grid inside the markings of 35mm spacing, to give me points 35mm apart in a rectangular grid, which I
then drilled out with an 8mm drill. With that done I needed to clamp the reinfocing plate to the bulkhead in order
to get as much metal-metal contact as possible and give the strongest finish - given that I could not get a clamp
around it, the solution I cam up with was to mark the reinforing plates with the locations of the subframe mounting
bolt holes, drill those out with an 8mm drill, replace the plates in position and use some 8mm High Tensile bolts
through a piece of 18mm ply on the inside and a section of wooden plank on the outside to crank the plate and
bulkhead together as tightly as possible - this worked pretty well, but you can see on the photo of the nearside
plate on the left that there was a spot furthest from the bolt holes where the metal was sitting a bit pround, so I
drilled a 4mm hole and used a 4mm bolts and some penny washers to clamp that up prior to welding the seam round the
edges there.
The first job I tackled was repairing the cracks by the lower bulkhead front subframe mounts and fitting some reinforcing plates to prevent that happening again.
With the rust all wire brushed off the inside, I gave it all a couple of coats of Bilt Hamber Etchweld to protect the metal that would be trapped between the reinforcing plates and the bulkhead once they were welded in place and therefore unable to get painted. It's great stuff, and very highly recommended - I've used a lot of Bilt- Hamber stuff, and never been anything other than very impressed with it. I then measured up the area for the plates, and started cutting steel! (I'd been looking forward to this part for wuite some time). The plates go right into the seam between the bulkhead and floorpan (as did the original plates) and I notched the plates to fit in around the hollows where the steering rack mounts bolt on to allow me to get the biggest plates possible in (see below) - the bigger the plates, the more they'll spread the load, and the less likely a repeat of the cracking...
With the plate measured and trimmed to fit, I marked round the edge and then removed the plate. Next job was to
pre-drill the holes in the bulkhead for the
plug welds
that would hold the centre of the plate to the bulkhead in addition to the seam welds to go round the edges. I just
drew up a grid inside the markings of 35mm spacing, to give me points 35mm apart in a rectangular grid, which I
then drilled out with an 8mm drill. With that done I needed to clamp the reinfocing plate to the bulkhead in order
to get as much metal-metal contact as possible and give the strongest finish - given that I could not get a clamp
around it, the solution I cam up with was to mark the reinforing plates with the locations of the subframe mounting
bolt holes, drill those out with an 8mm drill, replace the plates in position and use some 8mm High Tensile bolts
through a piece of 18mm ply on the inside and a section of wooden plank on the outside to crank the plate and
bulkhead together as tightly as possible - this worked pretty well, but you can see on the photo of the nearside
plate on the left that there was a spot furthest from the bolt holes where the metal was sitting a bit pround, so I
drilled a 4mm hole and used a 4mm bolts and some penny washers to clamp that up prior to welding the seam round the
edges there.