RUST IN PEACE?
ne of my regular customers emailed me to let me know that his rather shabby 1991 Defender 110 Station Wagon had failed the mot and needed some welding. this was probably the least surprising thing I have heard so far this year: the vehicle has done close to 300,000 miles, spends most of its time off-road up to its axles in mud, and is gradually falling to bits. the failure sheet was not a long one: nearside bulkhead outrigger and lower footwell, along with a couple of electrical niggles. Looking at the rear crossmember I thought the mot tester had been rather generous, but I sorted out the issues on the failure sheet, fitted a new front bumper (the old one was so rusty that the ends were in danger of falling off), gave it a long-overdue oil change and sent it out.
At this point everything went pearshaped. the test station that had carried out the original mot was unable to fit in the re-test for several days, so the owner took it to a different test station who failed it on rear crossmember, centre crossmember and front radius arm bushes. this was about to get expensive, but neither the owner nor I realised just how expensive. Replacing the rear crossmember was a straightforward job, complicated only by the fact that the rot in the nearside chassis rail had spread well forward of the extensions on the crossmember. But with the back end restored to full strength I could turn my attention to the middle.
Replacing the centre crossmember on a Station Wagon is in theory a body-off job, but there are a couple of ways around it. one is to cut the crossmember into three pieces, slot them into place and weld them back together. But as this vehicle already had a badly dented and corroded rear body tub and would need some repairs where the crossmember bolts to the forward face of the tub, I removed the floor, cut away the area around the crossmember mounts and was then able to slide the remains of the crossmember forwards and up. With it came the remains of the mounting brackets that are supposed to secure it to the chassis, and a fair chunk of the upper face of the chassis rails. this was not looking good.
It got worse. the rot extended well into the large box-section crossmember that carries the mounts for the rear axle A frame. the chassis was covered in thick, hard rust scale, and every time I tried to chip this away to find sound metal to weld to, another hole appeared. With the body in place, access was desperately poor, but by removing the exhaust, rear propshaft and shock absorber mounts I was just able to get enough access to clean everything up and weld in lots of shiny new 2.5mm steel plate.
Finally, I had a solid chassis complete with new crossmember mounts. I bolted the crossmember in place and then realised I had another problem to deal with. the crossmember ties the two ends of the sill rails together and attaches them to the chassis, providing a solid mounting for the centre and rear door pillars (B and C posts). or at least it would have done, if the bottoms of the C posts had still been attached to the sill rails. more fiddly welding ensued. At least the radius arm bolts weren’t rusted solid.
Was it worth it? the owner turned up to collect the vehicle with his two young children, and straight away it was obvious that this was not just a scruffy old Land Rover, more like a much-loved family pet. the children couldn’t wait to get back into ‘their’ Land Rover, and I suspect this one will be around, and testing my welding skills, for many more years to come.
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