Door Sills
Preparation
As the door sills on Chuggaboom were
non-existent (or fibreglass in one case) we've decided that they need to
be fully reconstructed while the body is still in place to keep its shape
and so we don't end up with two pieces. Most people seem to recommend this
and in our case I think it is definitely necessary.
To do this we cut out the badly rusted section along the body panel.
(Top photo) This meant removal of a bodged panel that had been screwed
onto the chassis and body panel on the inside. Unfortunately this has
caused the chassis to rust, but it still seems fairly sound on this side.
We intend to replace this section with a new sheet of steel and will have to buy new door posts and sills. The piece of wood is there
to hopefully mark where the panel should come down to. As you can see,
there is quite a lot to replace!
Removal of the fibreglass door sill on the right revealed a nightmare - a hole in
the chassis had obviously been patched over (badly) with a piece of
fibreglass and stuffed full of what looked like loft insulation! This
seemed to have nicely retained moisture and caused an even large hole in
the chassis.
We also had to remove two bodged metal strips (visible on top of the
chassis sill) that had been screwed to the chassis. This was done by
grinding the screw heads off and then smoothing the screws after the panel
had been taken off. You can even watch a
video of this exciting event!
