welding sills

elmsoft · 3 Feb 2020

my 55 plate Mondeo has a lot of corrosion. But I am very fond of it.
What kind of job is getting sills welded? It was routine with Cortinas in my youth!

Burnerman · 3 Feb 2020

For sure it can be done, and replacement pattern sills are available......but they have to be seam welded without any gaps and the metal you need to weld to needs to be sound.
As for being economically viable I'd say no, but that depends on how much you love the car!
You'll need to find someone very competent with a MIG welder.
John

elmsoft · 3 Feb 2020

thanks for info
I'll think about it.

JohnD · 3 Feb 2020

surely a car that age would be made of Zintec?

I though the days of galloping sillrot were long gone?

Are you in an area with lots of road salt?

elmsoft · 4 Feb 2020

NO idea.

Got an advisory in recent MOT and wondering if I can patch it up or it is time to get rid of it. Like I said , I still like the car and it's a useful big estate load carrier.

Burnerman · 4 Feb 2020

You can patch the sills, but the days of pop rivets, bodyfiller and loads of black underseal (of which I was the world expert) have long gone.........all patches have to be welded all the way round.
John

Mottie · 4 Feb 2020

Burnerman said:
For sure it can be done, and replacement pattern sills are available......but they have to be seam welded without any gaps and the metal you need to weld to needs to be sound.

John, from my MOT testing experience (I’d have to look it up to be sure) I'm pretty sure that only patch repairs to sills need seam welding but if the sills were originally spot welded, a replacement sill can also be spot welded.

Burnerman · 4 Feb 2020

Good thinking - thanks for that!

John

Keithmac · 5 Feb 2020

I recently welded up a Ford Transit minibus for MOT, it was a rot box!.

The rear sill and inner chassis was FUBAR, I made and seam welded a panel onto the inside but the bottom of the sill I plug welded (all the rest of outer sill was seem welded), this was to replicate the original spot welds.

I made and seem welded two front inner wing repair panels but again I plug welded the bottom of these to the chassis rail (original was spot welded).

Went straight trough MOT (was 4 Sundays work, for free for our Scout group).

I used SIP Gasless mig wire in an old (20+year old) SIP Migmate Turbo 130.

Gasless went really well, no bottle rental for gas and it genuinely worked better outside (wind tends to blow the shield gas off "normal" mig torch).

Got my MK2 Golf GTI to do next, will be using Gasless on that as well.

My plug welds were probably every inch (or slightly less).