Figured I should probably update this post rather than further hi-jacking the "today I mostly..." one!
The decision has been made that the inner sill on the drivers side is to be replaced as a whole, rather than messing around trying to patch it. There have been repairs done there before, so there are already two layers of metal around the jacking point. This is part of the sill assembly you can get from VW. Okay, the part's the best part of £100, but for the days (at least!) of faffing around it will save and the far better quality of the repair, just going to deal with that.
Since the last update here, a lot of cleaning has taken place - the engine bay in particular is now rather more user-friendly after a session with the pressure washer - was getting fed up of the fact that every time you so much as *looked* at the engine you got covered in oil.
I've made the discovery that the offside rear side panel is pretty well completely shot...precisely how I'm going to tackle this has yet to be decided. It's hidden under a metal cover, so appearance isn't really critical, so a plate may just be welded in. I reckon water getting in here may well be partly responsible for the inner sill having dissolved - as that's where the water ends up!
Passengers side where the door runner is ain't pretty, but is at least hole-free.
The drivers side outer sill is good for nothing but scrap, having the appearance and structural integrity of a brown and blue sieve.
The inner sill is even worse - in that it basically isn't there for the most part!
Probably the most annoying bit of rust I've found lately though has to be this. Hole in the nearside rear suspension trailing arm...Grrrr! These parts are both expensive and a complete pig to get off. Offside one at least appears to be sound. However I think it will have to come off to complete repairs around its mounting point on the sill anyway. Great.
This Sunday was mostly spent stripping out the offside interior in preparation for the work on the sill there, and to hunt for any more rot.
Wasn't actually too hard to strip out to be honest. The kitchen is basically just one unit, bolted on to a wooden floor panel that's bolted in a couple of places to the floor and to the wall of the van. Once you've removed them and disconnected the power cable to the water pump, it can just be lifted out of the way. We've not taken it out of the van, just moved it over to the far side as that gives more than enough space for now.
What's this? Signs of prior repairs? Suuurely not...Still, at least we failed to poke any holes in the floorpan, even the crusty looking bits. The damp there is mostly due to the fact that the lower seals have all fallen off the drivers door - it only lets water in though when the van is washed - which it was the day before these photos were taken. It's otherwise weatherproof!
The pillar there is actually far more solid than it looks. Someone's "painted" it with seam-sealer in the past, which is flaking off. It's actually suffering from some surface rust, but is otherwise solid (well, save for the bottom inch or so). My first thought when looking at it was that it would dissolve when touched!
Same area, different angle. There's a plate in the floor where the drain tube from the sink goes, looks like that was welded in when the conversion was done.
This is the area behind the huge holes in the side panel you can see above...This is pretty shot in places too.
The van feels really big with all this stuff out...
I'm pretty certain you shouldn't be able to see daylight here!
Aaaand that's about where we are at the moment. I'm not going to be able to afford to order the sill until payday (A week tomorrow), so not likely to be any significant updates until that arrives.
Oh, and I replaced the VW badge a couple of weeks ago...purely to stop my mother complaining! ...it does look a bit less sorry for itself with it though.
