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Replacing inner and outer sills

Posted: 25 Sep 2008, 13:03
by Cruz
can anyone who has fitted an inner sill tell me how they went about fitting the sill around the jacking points?

The area of the sill inside the front jacking point has a hole in as well as the sill being knackered along it's length.

1 The sill is solid around the rear jacking point so I assume I can weld the new sill up to this. Would I be right?

2 Where the front jacking point is the sill goes through the cross member piece. How do you fit it around this, or did you take the cross member off too?

Posted: 25 Sep 2008, 21:45
by dugcati
oh... pain!

I have just finished replacing both inner and outer sills on my bus - what a job!....

I ended up cutting out the whole things and removing the rear arch quarter panels too.....
See my photobucket pics....
http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h101/dugcati/t25/

****E D I T*****
Think I 'may' have cocked up a bit with the link - I think it asks you to log in to see the album so you'll need a photobucket account to see the pics (I think!).......

Posted: 25 Sep 2008, 23:01
by Cruz
Cheers for the reply

Your photobucket account is set to private. In order for anyone else to see it you need to set it to public under 'account options' in the top right corner

Sills

Posted: 25 Sep 2008, 23:17
by cumbriankeith
I would be very interested to see this pics as mine needs some of this TLC soon and was pondering on the same type of issues as well.

Posted: 26 Sep 2008, 11:24
by dugcati
Yo all....

try using this as the password.....

club8090

The link is...



http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h101/dugcati/t25/


:)

Doug

Posted: 26 Sep 2008, 15:39
by cumbriankeith
Hey thanks for that Doug!
Now your getting good at this can you do a few bits on mine now?!

Posted: 26 Sep 2008, 16:49
by Cruz
Yep. Me too and I'd help. I'm a willing donkey but wouldn't have a clue at welding :wink:

For peoples information VW still sell the Left Inner sill (n/s) £58+vat 253-801-251

This is cheaper than JK who charge nearly £90 and Schofields who can't get them at the minute (so they told me today on the phone)

Sadly the right sill (o/s) is obselete 251-803-252. How hard would it be for them to knock a few up? :roll:

Posted: 26 Sep 2008, 17:42
by dugcati
tiz a shame your both so far away otherwise.........

Posted: 28 Sep 2008, 18:41
by Cruz
On further inspection both of my inner and outer sills are totally shot on each side :cry:

Can anyone give me a rough ball park figure of how long it would take a professional to do the following :-

- Cut out inner and outer sills from both sides including the O/S sill which incorporates a bit of the floor as that's crumbled away thanks to 25 years of fridge condensation

- Refit both offside and nearside inner and outer sills as well as the offside side panel up to the first swage line (with a hole for the hookup point to go back) and an offside short sill *

*Awaits a stratospheric hourly figure :cry:

Posted: 28 Sep 2008, 18:55
by Steve P
How hard would it be for them to knock a few up? :roll:[/quote]
I know where you are coming from. We asked about the lower front panel for air cooled, we got told that it would not be worth their time or money to rattle 1 off. But surley I'm not the only one who wants one!

Posted: 28 Sep 2008, 20:47
by dugcati
Cruz m8 - based on how long it took me and the invariable once you start chopping you have to keep going until you find something decent to weld to; I would say around the £1,000 mark for to be done by someone who charges by the hour. It's a full on interior out/petrol tank off/hacking into all of the the arches/B and C pillar chopping not to mention the requirement for a full lower respray afterwards... you have seen the pics of what I found on my van and that took me a few weeks of working 3 ish hours a night by myself out on a driveway.

I would love to offer to do this for you but I suspect a divorce may be in the making as I have put doing my van in front of lots of family time over the last couple of months!

If your not on any ETA for the van and you can wait until next year then I am sure we could arrange something.

On a brighter note to all that it is possible to patch up the sills as mine had been patched several times before I said enough is enough and replaced them - If doable in terms of distance/getting round possibly having to leave the van laid up for a bit etc I reckon we could do this.


Can you get some pics on here of the inner sills/b-pillars/the petrol cap area/outer sills on off side and an interior shot of the floor behind the fridge/cupboards as this would give a good idea as to how bad it all is.


Doug

Posted: 28 Sep 2008, 20:48
by dugcati
Steve/Bev.... I need a front lower so that's two of us!

Posted: 29 Sep 2008, 06:22
by Cruz
I'm stripping the interior this week so I'll get some pictures up of the damage. From taking out the fridge I can see already that the floor piece of the offside outer sill has crumbled away. From prodding and poking them the A and B pillars seem sound.

To me both inner sills are beyond saving. The nearside is definitely shot whereas when I put any significant pressure on parts of the offside inner sill it sounds and feels like it's ready for caving in.

Work will definitely need doing before the MOT next May so it looks like it's overtime city for me then to save up enough moola :lol:......but really that should be :cry:

Posted: 29 Sep 2008, 18:05
by dugcati
jolly good - look forward to seeing the pics - hopefully it's not as bad as mine was!