Eradicating the tinwork from my van . . !!!

[Transitwalla]

Well, on sound advice I start this thread in the vain hope that it will provide inspiration for some and as a source of humour for others . .

MOT is due in June so I thought I would have a good look round the old girl and see if anything needed doing, silly me, its a Transit of course things will need doing . Well I found a little hole in the floor just in front of the drivers side rear wheel arch and decided to poke at it...like the MOT man would you know . .and the hole got a little larger. So I took the plywood flooring out to get a better look and tapped the area with a small hammer . .good god what a mistake that was...ended up with a hole the size of which you could drive a Renault Master through . So I trimmed back the rust to a reasonably sound area {if I had gone back to solid metal I might have ended up with a pile of dust and an engiine on the floor} and ended up with a hole this size;

Not too bad I thought so set about welding in a patch and ended up with a repair I'm happy with....

A Lick of black Hammerite later and all seems well. More info and pictures as and when I do the remaining repairs and take photo's.

[Gunslinger]

yep .... ford should have painted dotted lines on the floor in those areas (front and back of rear arches) then repairers later would just have to cut along the dotted lines to remove the crap.

interesting that you didnt opt to come forwards another inch and remove the original joint in the floor panels as well

i also see some familiar holes starting to appear in the floor in the area of the middle of the arch and slightly towards the centre of the van ... oh yeah that will be the chassis rail mounting point

[Transitwalla]

Gunslinger wrote >> interesting that you didnt opt to come forwards another inch and remove the original joint in the floor panels as well <<

Thought about it for a few seconds...then thought the extra thickness would give me a better base with which to weld to . . turned out not to bad . Now I'm off to weld some more. . .

[Gunslinger]

yeah thats true, only downside i see is that the lower side of your joint is in the middle of the chassis outrigger and not so easy to seal up properly, leaving condensation and damp an nice place to hide, although a good thumping with waxoyl should solve that.

And i guess if you can get it cut back to the other edge of the chassis outrigger then you might be able to weld the 3 together ..... hhhmmm, i think i might have done that at one point come to think of it

[transit jono]

I've got similar rust problems with the rear floor in my Smiley including along the chassis rail.I thought of patching it which means about 8/9 holes!Had a brain wave,phoned Ford and they still list the floor at £139 + the tax and that dealer had 6 yes SIX 2000 Transits having the rear floors changed under warrenty!!!
I had a look on stealbay and found a dealer that could do the floor at £80 including the tax-cheque in post.

[Gunslinger]

thats not a bad price jono .... which seller was it and were they original ones, let us know what you think when you get it

Edit ..... forgot to say, if you can photo it when you get it, others will know how much the panel covers

[Transitwalla]

Right, had the welder out again today and made a repair to the right rear corner which started out like this

Will need to put the bloody hammer away as the devastation it leaves behind is unreal . Showers of rain and a little breeze make for welding outside interesting to say the least. And here is what the finished article looks like.


I might add that the van is my regular mode of transport so any repairs need to made on the fly so to speak. The repairs being done are to satisfy the MOT man, hopefully, I'm on the lookout for a MK2 and then I can start repairing with a vengeance

[Gunslinger]

looking good and getting there at a decent pace too

i spy a previous repair section just to the left of the one you did, you'll have a patchwork quilt like mine soon

and yeah, welding outside is always good fun

[Transitwalla]

Gunslinger wrote
i spy a previous repair section just to the left of the one you did, you'll have a patchwork quilt like mine soon

Yeah spot on... did those soon after getting the van, about 3 years ago, but now one or two are showing signs of rust around the original repair...bet your life that was going to happen...but didn't have the time - at the time - to make the kinda repair I was after . . . be interesting to see the kinda floor panel Transit.jono has got hold of, might be worth holding off on any further repairs till then .....

[Gunslinger]

yeah that panel intrigued me too, as that section of transits was always a mix and match area because the centre section was common and the areas around that changed depending on the model

[transit jono]

Teamster i wish i could weld like that,it would take me all year.Great work.
With reference to the new floor panel it is a gen Ford part.When i receive it i TRY to get pictures up-but can't on with the photo bucket thingy.I believe that the panel is the whole rear floor from just before the tubbs back to the rear doors-time will tell.

[Gunslinger]

if you want email me the pics at
the_gunslinger@ntlworld.com
and i'll add them into photobucket

[transit jono]

Thanks-done deal-----Cheers.

[Transitwalla]

Co-operation . .wonderful when it works . .

[Transitwalla]

Teamster i wish i could weld like that,it would take me all year.Great work.
With reference to the new floor panel it is a gen Ford part.When i receive it i TRY to get pictures up-but can't on with the photo bucket thingy.I believe that the panel is the whole rear floor from just before the tubbs back to the rear doors-time will tell.

Cheers Transit.Jono . . self taught with the mig. I learnt to weld 28 years ago with a ARC welder and got quite good too . . . getting past the stage of blowing massive holes in panels, and getting the rod stuck to the work piece quite quickly . . .but like everything else . . .use it or lose it. . . and I lost it with a vengeance .
Then with the availability of the MIG welder I bit the bullet, several years ago, and bought one out of neccessity . .