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Rear wheel arch outer repair


Highway_Star

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Havin gstuck my thumb through a previous owners bodged repair wiht filler (right at the top corner of the rear wheearch outer panel, where they all rust), I 've set about sortin git.

Patched the inner, I would normally replace these but it wasn't that bad, and I didn't fancy removing both the petrol tank and the lpg tank to get at it in safety.

Now the outer arch is well shot at the top, once i removed all the paint and filler :rolleyes: I wasn't looking forward to attempting to form up a patch. However Simmonites have repair panels for this, at £24.95, so I've ordered one. Tomorrow will be out with the spot weld cutter in readyness for it's arrivel.

Anyone actually ever fitted one though?

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nope - not done it. i assume you mean the curved seciton that you see when you open the rear door?

it should be fine if you can tame the welder for the metal.

if it were me, i'd cut the existing metal short so that you leave yourself too much overlap ( where that applies ) and then you can grind it back to get a good close match.

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Yeah, that's the bit Donald. Almost impossible to repair by patching I'd reckon. Some plonker in the past hadn't tried, they just pushed the rusty hole full of filler and painted over it :rolleyes:

It's only spot welded on the curved seam (under the door seal), so I'll plug weld it along there. It's then seam welded to the pillar, can get at it ok I think.

Not been having too much trouble welding this thin material, most awkard thing seems to be welding vertical or horizontal from below, but playing about with the wire feed has helped tremendously.

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Hate to be a prophet of doom but I suspect you may find that the bottom of the C post needs cut back too, after having seen a few, so I suggest you have enough materials to hand for that.

Try this technique, butt the parts up and clamp a much thicker piece of bar formed to the curve below it. This acts as a heat sink and reduces the risk of burning through, if you are not over enthusiactic and use a continous spot weld you can end up with a totaly continous weld. Then use the same technique with the backing strip now on the top & starting at the lowest point moving up to give support to the weld as you move up.

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Bizzarely enough the post is ok, I've already been working on the inner wheelarch. It's not perfect, don't et me wrong, but it's certainly not bad enough to warrant chopping a lump off it and sticking a new bit on. Ther other side may well be a different matter....

I don't think I followed your directions there Niall, are you meaning to clamp a lump of metal to seat side of the cruved flange to act as a heat sink? Makes sense if you do.

So far I'm not having any problems with blowing holes, maybe beginners luck. I'm using 0.6mm wire with the volts turned down to second form bottom (out of 6 settings), flat out this wee welder vaporised a bit of 2mm plate I experiemted on last week!

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I don't think I followed your directions there Niall, are you meaning to clamp a lump of metal to seat side of the cruved flange to act as a heat sink? Makes sense if you do.

You got it :D sorry speaking tartan :lol:

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Did some rather extensive repairs to a Rangy rear arch a while ago. Although pretty bad corrosion - it was very localised. The area around the seat belt mount, and it's support plate were very bad. Outside of that area the metalwork was still in excellent condition.

med_gallery_2_46_631979.jpg

med_gallery_2_46_262926.jpg

The other rear arch was in the same bad condition.

Les.

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That looks familiar!

The rear arhces always rot around the belt mount for some reason. I've done somthing very similar to that Les, albeit I ended up chopping out more metal than you did. I'll be making up a new spreader plate too. Once I've repaired the bottom corner of the sill, the new outer arch will be going on, and the whole lot will be seam sealered, painted and Shutzed to death!

I think over the summer I'll be doing something about the sills, pondering wether to buy panels, or to make something beefier out of some box section steel. Either way is going to be alot of work.

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Double skinned. Tinworm trauma everytime

Exactly. On other vehicles I've seen with only slight corrosion in the same area - it looks like the rot starts between the arch steel and the reinforcing plate for the seat belt bolt. Corrosion in geberal always seems to start where one piece of metal is attached to another. You would have thought that manufacturers would have got it right by now, (or at least better)

Les

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I've not seen the repair panels. I cut a good arch off a scrap body and welded it on. It was a bit off a pain cuting it off the old body and trimming my rusty arch / C post to accept the replacement arch. I guess it took about half a day all told. The bottom of the C post was also rusted so I had to take a small section of that with the arch which made cutting it more off a pain. If it's just the arch it should be slightly easier.

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Ho hum, tonight I unloaded the front axle I picked up yesterday. That was a tight fit I'll tell you, one of the hubs sat right up on the arch.

So when I looked at the o/s rear belt mount it's been pushed down meaning I have some patching to do also :angry:

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@kin 'ell!

I've been at it most of the day.

Repair section fabricted and welded into the sill end. No big shakes there.

Lined up and clamped the wheel arch section, and welded that it, took a blooming age because whatever Land Rover coat it in splutters like a splutter thing, kept having to stop and clean up, as well as adjust myself as I worked up the curve. Needless to say the bloody welder ran out of gas with an inch and half of weld to go, so ff to Halfords for another 'bend over and take it' priced bottle.

However it's now in, I've fabricated a new mud flap extenstion section out of galvanised plate, as the old one has joined the pile of dust on the garage floor.

Question: All this lot is going to need seam sealed. Do I give it a healthy coat of zinc/red oxide primer, then seam sealer, or seam sealer on bare, clean metal?

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Couldn't get the zinc stuff, no where round here has it these days :( Unless I wanted galvaforid at £53 a tin :o

So red oxide it was duly slapped with, and once it's cured tomorrow it'll get some seam sealer, closely followed by satin black on the visible bits, or Schutz Tetracote followed by waxoyl on the not so visible bits.

I defy it to rust!

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Sadly, you are probably right, in the long term.

Got back brakes to rebuild, new discs and caliper pistons/seals.

Then the wheelarch on the other side, just the inner this time though.

Followed by both sill, they are reasonably ok but won't last more than a couple of years.

Thinking of making new ones out of box section, then putting my rock sliders back on.

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Well I spent a fun filled few hours sorting mine out.

My new welder was well worth the money. Unlike yours my reinforcing plate was still in one piece although somewhat thinner so was replaced with new materia.

Nice job done if I say so myself!

No pics I'm afraid, but it's not that big a deal. That just leaves for the test, new discs and pads on the back, track rod end and steering box that I can see.

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  • 9 months later...

ARGGGGGGGGH!

Mine does not look too bad, especially around the belt mounts so that is good, but the the lip that the door rubber fits over is in a bad way on the offside, and the nearside is looking like like it is getting ready to cause more trouble.

Is it this area that repair panels from Simmonites can be had?

P2130127.jpg

And how on earth am I going to repair this section of the offside arch, it seems the rot has got right down to the bottom:

RockCrawler003.jpg

RockCrawler002.jpg

RockCrawler001.jpg

HELP!

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ARGGGGGGGGH!

Mine does not look too bad, especially around the belt mounts so that is good, but the the lip that the door rubber fits over is in a bad way on the offside, and the nearside is looking like like it is getting ready to cause more trouble.

Is it this area that repair panels from Simmonites can be had?

P2130127.jpg

And how on earth am I going to repair this section of the offside arch, it seems the rot has got right down to the bottom:

RockCrawler003.jpg

RockCrawler002.jpg

RockCrawler001.jpg

HELP!

Hi, I got rear wheelarches from MPS for around £24 each I think, I expect the Simmonites ones are the same.

They're a simple enough job to replace. Youll make the job easier if you remove the rear wings.

You're likely to find that the C pillars have some degree of rot and may need patching at the bottom.

Other than that the job's quite straightforward. Drill out the pop rivets and grind off the seam welds and the old arch should come off easily.

Clean up/repair the mating face that's left and then clamp the new arch in place.

I used a couple of pop rivets to hold it after getting it in the right position so I could close the door for a final check.

You can either seam weld or plug weld the flange and use seam wels at the sill and C post ends.

Dont forget a good dose of anti-rust primer & top coat of your choice.

Good luck,

Bob :)

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