After a long period of boredom with working on cars, I decided to get off my arse and fix up my Landy. This is the first tinkering I have done for quite a while, not counting plodding through routine maintenance and repairs of the daily use cars, and I am pretty chuffed overall. I dont have a huge amount of free time so this will be evenings and weekends only.


Yeah, yeah, I know....its a girls car, not a proper offroader, hairdressers runnabout blah blah blah...you know what? I like it. It actually surprisngly capable off road, only hampered by lack of lo-ratio and on the road its pretty civilised and car-like to drive. This is a van version, so ideal for what I need for daily use and work.

I have had this car for years....5 or 6 years, I think - which is by far one of the longest periods of time I have owned any car, so that must count for something. Its not been without its problems though, having had several not very careful owners before me. I bought it at the bottom of the price range at a clearance car auction in Scotland and since then its provided sterling service with the occasional wallet-denting breakdown...highlights include 4 new injectors, a new turbo and a new VCU. Its also running a Synergy box and Pierburg MAF, Silicon boost hoses and a few other bits n pieces.

I laid it up several months ago due to the clutch being on its way out and the body suffering from rust. Freelanders seem to be one of the better Land Rover products for rot resistance. You only ever really see them either rust-free or the odd totally rotten one. Typically mine is the latter. This was never picked up earlier due to French MOT tests not caring about rust. The last few CT reports have just said "multiple corrosion points" as an advisory. I could have kept on using it but for my own piece of mind I preferred to weld it up. I could also have just lashed a plate over the top of the sills, but that would just prolong the inevitable by a year or two - I preferred to do it properly.

Once the welding is done, I will be changing the clutch - will probably fit a solid flywheel conversion - and then I think a rebuild of the suspension is in order. Springs, shocks, polybushes and it would be rude not to fit a lift kit while its in bits eh?

I dug it out of where its been sleeping for months. It took an Austin Powers style 23-point turn to reverse it into there and getting it out today was the same deal, which was tricky with a dud clutch.


Into the garage and up on some old rims. I hate welding upside down, so wanted to get it nice and high.


I often lurk around carpet shops and snap up roll-ends of Lino as my garage floor is just dirt. Dusty as hell in summer and muddy as hell in winter.


The back of the sill. Another problem with these is the sills are covered with a very thick, tough rubberised paint up to the first swage line which hides grot well. I peeled a chunk off and the metal came with it.


A bit further along...Two in the pink and one in....well, you get the idea.


Underneath, it looked ok apart from this little outrigger which seems to have suffered from use as a jacking point.

In the pic above you can see the plastic sill trim in place, which turned out to be hiding some horrors - its a bad moisture and mud trap.

Some bashing with a chisel made some holes along 3/4 of the sills length.


I cut the outer skin off to see the full extent...



With the trim off, the bottom surface of the sill was pretty rotten for about half its length. The vertical inner face is pretty solid though - it resisted some heavy bashing with the chisel.


poking my hand up, I could feel a plastic bag full of something so I started pulling....


WTF? If I was going to be pulling out bags of stuff that had been hidden in the sills, I at least want it to be a few kilos of coke, not foam mousse. Talk about fire hazard...if I had started welding, this would have gone up in flames pronto.


Turns out its Landrovers cheap way of blocking off the sill from the inside of the upper structure. Peeking up the hole shows the seatbelt mech and the back of the interior trim panels. There are two of these up there.


I started cutting into the strengthening rib towards the rear....damn, this has more layers than an Amway marketing scheme...


But with the loose stuff removed it seems quite simple really.


And thats where I got to this evening. I have to rush around pretending to work tomorrow morning, but the afternoon is free. I will head to town and pick up some 1.2mm steel as I have hardly any left and maybe a new grinder. My second one which I use for cleaning up metal has no guard on it, which gives me the willies when using it with the knotwheel.

wow, I've never got into welding or rust repairs (apart form bog and Hammerite) so to me that looks like a huge job to take on! You don't sound daunted by it though, so good luck.

I like working on the Freelander over my old Discos and Series truck - mainly because everything is smaller and lighter (and less rusty!) - but when it comes to rust, presumably the monocoque is more complex to fix.

Wow nice to see a proper repair being done. It's sounds daft but I have never seen it. Yes of course I have read the thread on here about rotten trattors but as GG said, monocoque seems to be a bit more complex. I have only ever seen people do bodge it patches on.
Quite interesting to see how bad the rust is behind the layers of sill aswell

Its not all that difficult - MIG welding is just like colouring in, but with added fire. The hardest part is getting it all back to good usable metal without cutting too much out. The inner strengthening ribs are an added complication, but its not the end of the world.
I will make up the replacement sections maybe 10 inches long to weld them in - that way its more manageable to get the shapes right.

The original sill has four or five indentations spaced along its length. I dont have the equipment to replicate these with ease and while I could probably panel-beat them approximately, its not really worth the effort - my outer skins will be smooth along their length. technically I will loose a small amount of rigidity by omitting them but in the real world,the fresh metal I will put in is going to be much, much stronger than the crispy rubbish and fresh air that was there before.

Good luck. I don't envy you. I did a Spitfire mk3 several decades ago which had folded in the middle, but this looks worse but an easier job.

You used to be able to get sills for cars. Are they not available for the Freelander?

WOW! I have never seen a Freelander with rotten sills before now I am worried what the tratters will say where has it been parked in the sea or something .
Best of luck with it

Never see that kind of damage...
Probably it looks like that because sit in bad environment for many years

Winu said:

Never see that kind of damage...
Probably it looks like that because sit in bad environment for many years

Click to expand...

Yeh, if Scotland wasn't bad enough, it ended up in France!

Mines french and isnt like that !!!

Got some tinkering time in this afternoon, and managed to get some fresh metal stuck to it.

Step one was to sort some tunes out in the garage. I hate working in silence. I dug some hopelessly out of date equipment out of the cupboard and plugged it all in. #### your ipods, this Creative Zen must be 15 years old and still works a treat.


I bought another grinder too. Im very happy with it in an annoyed way. I hesitated on buying another Bosch like the one I already have but though it was a little too dear, so plumped for this cheaper B&D, expecting it to be not as good. Turns out to be more powerful and much smoother than the Bosch. Oh well.


I dont know what this stuff is...its thin alloy sheeting with German writing on it...looks like it was tourist information signs in the past. There were hundreds of them in the garage when I moved in. Its thin enough to cut easily with scissors but strong enough to form to shapes accurately and be bent/folded unlike cardboard. Ideal for making templates.


I chopped a bit more rot out and made a start to welding in new sections. I started at the back where the inner support is multi-layered. This is all hidden inside the sill and doesnt have to be pretty, just strong. Also visible, the end of the sill is rotten. I will need to get the wheel off to get access to that.


My wee pillar drill started being an arse and kept tripping the garage RCD even when not running. I ran an extension into the house and plugged it into the kitchen and it works fine. Odd.

More.


More


And close that section off...


The welding on the left side of the jacking point kept going funny...possibly contaminants in the steel so I wanged several beads on top of each other to beef it up.

I have stopped for dinner. Being a sado with no social life, I will probably get a bit more done this evening.

I like what i see!

I don't think iv'e seen this work under taken on here?

Keep us posted!

Got to be a future sticky on Sill replacement?

Regards Mulderke

Some nice work going on there Dave.
Didn't somebody post a while back about a silt/moisture trap behind a bit of plastic trim on the front part of the rear wheel arch by the sill, and had to do a bit of a cosmetic rust repair/repaint?
Been meaning to check mine, but after seeing your thread will do it tomorrow, on both cars!

Yes, the back end of the sill on mine was packed solid with mud behind the plastic wheel arch liner.

I didnt get a huge amount done last night as it was a bit late to be messing about with grinders and stuff, but things went pretty well today....

I fitted the new lower part for the internal strengthening rib...




I removed and rebuilt the wee outrigger. I made it out of thicker steel (2.2mm I think?) that I had lying around to give it some strength, but this meant my folds were not as sharp as I would have liked hence its slightly rounded corners. I made the countersunk drain holes by drilling a 25mm hole then placing the metal over the end of a large ring spanner and placing an old towball on top, which I belted with the hammer to bend down the lip of the hole.


I cut out the end of the sill and started rebuilding that area.


Looking better. I left a hole at the bottom of the lip to act as a drain and hopefully prevent muck building up in there again.


Photos get thin on the ground for the next bit as it was a bit of an arse to do. I bent up a single length of steel for the outer skin. Dear Santa - a sheet metal folder please. Until then I have to make do with some bits of angle-iron a wooden fence post and a bit of railway track to use as an anvil. I then drilled a load of holes along the bottom, clamped it, made the final cuts along the upper edge to get it sitting flush and welded it in. Lots of clamps, lots of hammering and a fair bit of swearing, and its done....




The angle of this bit turned out not quite right but its behind the plastic wheel arch spat, so who cares?


I now need to turn it round and have a look at the other side. Will it be better or worse than this side? Place bets now!

Those pictures bring back memories, I used to do a lot of welding of cars in the mid eighties. Lots of Leyland and Ford models from the seventies and a regular Moggie Minor every year for a bit more patchwork. One Cortina Mk3 I did had 3 sets of oversills welded on, other than that it looked very similar to what you had there, and I did repairs virtually as you have done, spot welds and all. I had access to car lift at the time so it made a lot of the work easier, just had to watch out for unseen bonfires with the old underseal.

Very impressive, good job!

I got it turned around and the right hand side is now up on the spare wheels. A quick prod shows the outer skin to only be rotten on the rear 1/4 of its length. Tomorrow will tell how bad the inside structure is. The wee outrigger is about the same as the first side.

This looks familiar...


The rot was the same as the other side but didnt extend as far along the sill. I replaced pretty much the whole length on the other side, this one only needed about a third of that. Here it is cut open, rot removed and I am welding in a new lower section on the first layer of supporting rib.


Just the very bottom of the wheel arch/sill end was rusty. I chopped the whole end off...


I guess I forgot to take photos of the repair to the lower part of the second rib. Here it is being closed up with a new outer skin...



I still need to dress the welds as my flapwheels are all pretty worn so will get new ones soon. I still have the outrigger to replace, but that shouldnt take long.
The fuel tank cradle isnt too smart, so will have a look at that when I am done, then it will need a patch on the rear door skin under the handle.

what a Cracking job you have done!

In hours, how long would this sort of work take?

Cheers

I would guess I have done about 15 hours or so in total, but thats leisurely and I have a terrible habit when fettling my own cars of getting distracted and procrastinating. I tend to wander off and spend an hour tinkering with the lawn mower, do some more welding, then fiddle with the stereo for an hour, then do some more welding, then have lunch and spend an hour on the internet....m to say nothing of time lost just staring into space.
Properly motivated, I could have done what I have done so far in a day.