Welding cost ???

[aneng]

Hi.

My wife's connect needs the inevitable welding doing (again) at the sills just in front of the rear wheels. They've been done before but they've rotted through. It's only the first foot from the wheel arch forward - the rest of the sills are fine.

Unfortunately, one side caved in when I jacked the van up recently, so the inner and outer parts will have to be fabricated. There is good metal all around to weld to.

The guy I usually take my car to has quoted me £540 for the welding - which seems a bit high to me, but then I'm still working in 1980's prices !

I presuming plenty of you will have had this job done, given that it's the most common rot spot on the Connect.

How much did you pay ?

[metalworker0]

He will have to fabricate what's inside as well ..as they rot from the inside out most of the time and the construction is multiple panels joined together inner, middle and outer sections

its quite time consuming. to do a proper job ........and whatever you expect to find ..is usually far worse that expected

see here what they look like inside

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=209329&start=15

you cant really put a price on it ...there are some people who would do a quick "conceal and hide all" with patches welded over the top ...by the looks of things, that is what happened before .....so if you are still using the same chap that never fixed it well enough the first time (unless you paid him to do a conceal job the first time) he is not the bloke to fix it.

all the best.mark

[aneng]

Thank you for that - much appreciated.

[metalworker0]

Btw ..i bought my van thinking it looked ok ..i was quite wrong...and soon found out, i had worked welding other vehicles but never knew how seriously these connects can rot.

if not capable of fixing it myself ..the cost of paying someone would have easily have made it not worth fixing and would have been sent to the scrap yard.

The biggest clue, to work out if it needs major work and there is a lot of concealed rust, is to look along the pinch weld at the bottom of the sill , look all the way ....find a really good bit and compare with the rest .

At the pinch weld, where all three panels come together (inner , middle and outer sill) will swell, if all is not right above it, to twice the thickness of the good area, if its like that in a lot of places, then it will be even more horrendous above it, hidden on the inside. where by it could be that a great expanse of the middle sill has rotted away and no longer exists ....so making it in the future, impossible jack anywhere along it, without it buckling and crushing.


all the best.mark

[heimlaga]

If you clean up the area and sand blaster all rust and maybe even make some of the sheetmetal parts beforehand you will save roughly half the labour cost on welding.
So the welder told me when I had mine done.

Remember to spray raw linseed oil in the cavity afterwards. Capillary action sucks it into all riny pores.