Club 80-90 Forums

Just popped in to see what's happening. The old bus is booked in for MOT on Monday, fingers crossed as always but I had her on the ramps last weekend and she's not looking too bad for rust. I'll give her a blow over with the touch up gun if she passes. and maybe get away for a few nights at the end of the month.
Plenty of T25's on Skye at the moment including one that wasn't charging that I was glad to help fix.
If any of you are up this way and need help feel free to drop me a message, I'll not see you stuck.

Well the MOT man got his tapping hammer out and it went through my inner sills in several places both sides, there are now holes that wern't there at the weekend when I had the van on the ramps.
Time for new sills as the existing ones have been patched on top of patches every year since I bought the van.
On order from Schofields.
Can anyone give me tips on replacing them? do I need to brace the "chassis" before cutting the old ones out? I'll avoid cutting the outer sills if possible.
Finding solid steel to weld them to will be the tricky bit I think.

Howdo Bob, great to hear from you, hope all’s well with mate! Sorry can’t give much advice as had my o/s inner seal done by the bodyshop but I don’t think it was too much of a headache for them.

Depends how much you replace. The entirety? That’s rear JP territory as well, plus outriggers. Might I suggest you carefully explore just how much of your sills are gone. Maybe open a wee hatch above the jp, or do you have a bung in the wheel arch above the jp still that you can use as a peephole?

Like so…

viewtopic.php?p=8282203#p8282203

Thanks guys. I'll get a better look at it this weekend with any luck.
Theres certainly a hole in the sill just forward of the rear JP so that area needs looking at.
I'm not sure yet whether I need to replace the front JP along with the sill (they come as a complete unit) or cut the front end off my new sills and weld in close to the front outrigger.
My floor also looks pretty poor where the existing offside sill is attached so I may have to remove the cupboards so as not to set them on fire.   and if the cupboards are out I maybe should be looking at replacing bits of the floor....
Not just a quick bit of weekend welding and a retest by the look of it.

Thanks for the link Roger. I'll have a read.

Doing ok here thanks 300CE, hows life down there?

No problem, happy to help. Mind and do pics as you progress…

Well that's the offside done.
I cut the old one out in chunks between the outriggers, then ground off the spot welds and peeled the top strip from the floor.
I then cut the ends off the new sill having measured from the back edge of the front JP so that the back end slots in above the rear JP.
I got away without cutting access hatches on the outer panels which was lucky.
Two days to grind out the old and weld in the new. luckily there was enough floor metal left to weld to and didn't set fire to the plywood floor either although I did gut everything (including gas bottles and battery) out of the cupboards first and kept a hose handy.
Grinding and welding upside down with one side of the van on ramps was no fun, would have been much easier with a pit but the welder nozzle still gets clogged with weld splatter. I tied a rag round my neck to keep the sparks from going down the front of my boiler-suit and setting fire to my chest hair.
Next two days set aside to do the near side. the floor looks worse on that side, I'll see what's left when I cut out the old sill.
I took a week off work to get it done and we've had the best weather and no midgies so fingers crossed it keeps up.
 

Well done, sounds like you’re a lucky man to have avoided a bigger job.

I've finally got the sills finished, was a bit of a job tbh, not one i'd like to repeat but she's all welded up up and MOT'd for another year.
I also replaced the dizzy and coil with a Powerspark SVDA 034 kit from Simonbbc.
simple enough job and it's been on the to do list for a while.
That's stopped the jumpy timing that was happening with my old worn one.
happy days and ready for a few days away next week.