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Rear cross member replacement - welding costs


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Hi, I've just been discussing my rather rotten Defender 200Tdi rear crossmember with my local 4x4 garage and the general opinion is to replace it with a new one with chassis extensions. I said that I would do all the ancillary work such as removing lights, looms, tow bar, rear portion of the exhaust etc but they have still quoted me 8 hours to complete the work. This involves grinding off the old chassis legs half way down, fitting up the new crossmember and extensions and welding up. I can replace all the ancillary stuff after giving it a good dose of chassis paint and waxoyl. I've not ever had this sort of work done on the landy so could anybody advise if 8 hours seems a reasonable amount of time or are they extracting the urine?

Also there seems to be some discussion about which of the Britpart or Bearmach cross members are better. It seems Paddocks had a bad batch in. Can anybody advise on the latest situation? I see Paddocks have them for 120 quid inc VAT.

Many thanks,

Dave.

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IMHO what they are saying itsn't unreasonable.

Its a big job, all the worse with either of the crossmember suppliers you name, I have refused to change cross members for friends who have asked when they supply those bits of junk, thin, poorly made, poorly welded, and often plainly don't fit, takes time and result is still rubbish, buy a genuine one, proper metal fits, and quality, not as smuch as you would think, V8 Freak took this advice from me and was chuffed at the LR one vs junk pattern stuff.,

It also depends what they charge an hour, but £400- £500 labour is normal for the above

Nige

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I'm in the process of building my own (because i just will not buy the aforementioned junk!) and I would say that 8 hours is reasonable, certainly if it's going to be a good job.

To be honest, if someone quoted much less, I would be wary as to how they would manage it.

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When I did mine I was lucky enough to have a welder as a next door neighbour so he helped me complete the job over a 3 day period on christmas (we had some trouble with the extensions and then ran out of wire after the shops had shut) but all in all it was a bit more than 8 hours as I did my own grinding but it seems a reasonable time frame.

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Errr.... Cat, waxoyl..... I think you two ought to just call it quits....

Les fitted my rear cross member as Nige said. I bought a genuine part which I asked Les to modify for me before fitting. All the open areas that typically collect mud and start the rotting process were boxed in.

Once fitted we drilled and tapped holed in each box section and sprayed in Waxoyl. I hope this will stop the thing rotting from the inside out.

The genuine part didn't come with extensions so Les had a bit of a challenge to weld it all on.. In hindsight I believe he would make up short extensions if doing again to make the welding simpler.

It's an excelent job done bloomin well. I'm extremely proud of the end result and would recommend Les for work like that to anyone.

Neil

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  • 7 years later...

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