Cargo Bay Floor Removal Pt2

For the second attempt at attacking the floor I managed finish cutting all the way around and pull it up in one piece, although I did have to cut around the jacking points, and the spot welds under the seat rail plates had me stumped until I had a bit of help from a large chisel. The only things that gave me any trouble was the welding on the previously replaced sills. Although the door side was cut away earlier and also where the heater tubes come through the back of the floor, it was hard to get a cutting disc around most of it, so I chain drilled the tight corners here and the other places around the floor that a cutting disc would not fit.

One mistake I did make was along the front edge was cutting too deep through the floor and into the front support beam that was in reasonable condition. This means I will have to remove this support without damaging the lower edge of the forward bulkhead lower skin that this support is spot welded to. I am not sure how much trouble this will be.

As for the forward and back cut edges where the floor is folded up and spot welded I went round and peeled these remaining strips away by pealing and twisting the metal strips causing the welds to pop away leaving a small raised weld to grind off. This is a lot easier that grinding off the whole strip or drilling each weld but it could distort the good panel which is easy enough to tap straight again, but in the worst case it could rip away the weld so be careful when you do this. The edge of the floor that attaches between the rear wheel arches and the lower part of the forward engine bay fire wall is S shaped and not a simple 90 degree L shape as I thought, so I'll be leaving this part in tacked until I see what the new floor looks like.

Volks World Show 2009 at Sandown Park

Wise words to follow when I dont have to get up early in the morning.

Cargo Bay Floor Removal Pt1

After a lot of contemplation I finally committed to pulling up the whole cargo floor area. This was not a decision taken likely, many hours staring at the rust and the calculating how may repair patches would be needed in that corrugated floor, and how impressed I was with the replacement floors produced from Muscle Bus, finally got me to the decision to attack the many spot welds that pin this floor down. Once I started I knew I had made the right decision. I just hope I don't regret it later. I could have attacked the floor slicing it to pieces with a cutting disc along the edges of the outriggers which would have been fun but I felt I wanted some sort of recovery plan if I did make a huge balls up. So I decided to take the floor up in one piece, this meant removing every single spot weld. Although I had a spot weld drill I found it better to start with a sharp 1/8" drill bit carefully cutting only through the first piece of floor then finishing with a 3/16" that I'd slightly ground the tip flat so that it cut no further than the depth of the first drill bit. I only slipped through both pieces on a few holes and my knees suffered for too long on the ridges of the cargo floor.

Cargo Bay Clear Out

With a few hours to spare I managed to not sit in front of the TV and instead got myself into the garage. Although I wasn't in the mood for getting covered in rust I did manage to get the van out into the sun for a good clearout. That was after I pumped up the rear tyre with a cheap bike pump (not recommended for those with a heart condition). After a struggle drilling off a few rusty screws heads I was able to removed the rear pop outs to unearth some tiny pinhole rust spots in the gutter. I then cleared out the remaining interior, attachments, wires, insulation, gas pipes and old coppers (coins not Policemen) to get a good assessment of the whole cargo bay.

The 4 or 5 holes in the corrugated floor had not got any bigger than the first time I found them years ago, but the struts and floor supports I could see through these holes are looking very corroded. I brought a floor repair panel, but the idea of seam welding corrugation doesn't sound too good and could take a while.

Rear wheel arch and Cargo door latch rod repair

There are a few things I needed to do to get the rear cargo door lower skin to align in its original position and shape, the hole at the front of the left rear wheel arch needed patching up so that I could use the curve of that panel as a datum for the lower door skin. But as always another part needed repairing to get that panel to fit correctly. This could have carried on until I came around full circle, so I stopped at the inner wheel arch patch. The cargo bay floor and jacking mounts will have to wait till later.

Another little job to make sure the skin panels were fitting in the correct location was to repair the door locking rods (these are the rods that fit between both door skins and lock the door at the top and bottom from the central door handles) so the doors would not flap around like they did whilst on a bumpy road. A few beads of weld and a couple of minutes with a grinder and sanding disk sorted the corrosion on the lower part of the two cargo door latching rods. A little bead of weld along the worn parts of the lower latch sockets helped lock the doors in the correct position temporarily.