Sorento sills

[Morris]

My series one Sorento is a cracking work horse that gets used and abused and never complains. Every MOT I have got an advisory for rust, except last year when the advice was "don't take the pee again". I don't know what his problem was, looks ok to me.

Ok, so it's a touch rough.
Sills are available but so is 80x80x2 SHS so it's a toss up which to go for.
Of course it's the SHS.
Set to today (having to work on the path-ish bit of our drive) and hacked out everything that was rotten. I didn't take photos but I will for the other side (which is worse ).
By close of play today I was here.

The eagle eyed will spot the wandering where I lost the edge of the old silly.
I'll continue as weather allows and take some piccys.

 

[Blobber]

Im guessing that didn't take much removing?

 

[Morris]

Pretty much came off in my hand. The sills have plastic covers which hides all of that, it was the inner sills corrosion getting too close to the body mounts that were the issue (well, that and the evident disaster area).

 

[mechman]

My series one Sorento is a cracking work horse that gets used and abused and never complains. Every MOT I have got an advisory for rust, except last year when the advice was "don't take the pee again". I don't know what his problem was, looks ok to me.
View attachment 474026
Ok, so it's a touch rough.
Sills are available but so is 80x80x2 SHS so it's a toss up which to go for.
Of course it's the SHS.
Set to today (having to work on the path-ish bit of our drive) and hacked out everything that was rotten. I didn't take photos but I will for the other side (which is worse ).
By close of play today I was here.
View attachment 474027
The eagle eyed will spot the wandering where I lost the edge of the old silly.
I'll continue as weather allows and take some piccys.

What's SHS?

 

[Dozzer]

What's SHS?

Square Hollow Section

 

[beeRS]

Shocked to see so much rust on a ‘modern’ car. Isn’t the Sorento galvanised from the factory?

Good work with the repairs so far BTW.

 

[Morris]

Shocked to see so much rust on a ‘modern’ car. Isn’t the Sorento galvanised from the factory?

Good work with the repairs so far BTW.

It's a 2005 model so I suppose not that modern. Kia galvanised them with the then untested salt water dip method
They were built like tanks but rust was a real issue on the first series. Back axles had a built in water/mud trap on the top radius arm brackets and they were rotting off after only a few years. To Kias credit they were doing free repairs up to only a few years ago.
The rear wheel arches are next to a mud trap caused by the rear door and the plastic sill and arch covers do the rest of the damage.
Thanks for the good wishes.

 

[dave h 2]

Im guessing that didn't take much removing?

It's what gravity is for

 

[CompoSimmonite]

Just remember for MOT it'll require continuous welds - which I assume you are already doing.

 

[Morris]

Just remember for MOT it'll require continuous welds - which I assume you are already doing.

Yes, already in hand, my mate is on standby should I need to use his two post lift. It's currently stitched as I work around it.

 

[Morris]

That's the first side welded up as far as I can get, just the front body mount to do (can't get at it easily) and some bits on the vertical part of the inner sills.
So, as promised I'll document the second one a lot better. What better place to start than pre sillectomy. Back bit.

Underneath bit.

More grot

Front bit

As can be seen, it's a challenge.
More tomorrow hopefully.

 

[steve t]

Do you put the box section in so it acts as outer and inner sill?

 

[Morris]

Do you put the box section in so it acts as outer and inner sill?

I do but there's a bit more to it as the inner to outer sill measurement is a bit big.
It just shows what can lurk under sill covers. I believe some Jaguars can end up in a similar state.

 

[mechman]

That's the first side welded up as far as I can get, just the front body mount to do (can't get at it easily) and some bits on the vertical part of the inner sills.
So, as promised I'll document the second one a lot better. What better place to start than pre sillectomy. Back bit.
View attachment 474257
Underneath bit.
View attachment 474258
More grot
View attachment 474263
Front bit
View attachment 474264

As can be seen, it's a challenge.
More tomorrow hopefully.

Is that what they call a crumple zone?

 

[Blobber]

I do but there's a bit more to it as the inner to outer sill measurement is a bit big.
It just shows what can lurk under sill covers. I believe some Jaguars can end up in a similar state.

I think everything from that era that had the plastic sill covers suffered the same!

 

[droopsnoot]

I think everything from that era that had the plastic sill covers suffered the same!

My 1986 Audi coupe certainly did, though it's a bit older. I took the plastic covers off and almost nothing behind them. I was very reluctant to do the same on my TT, fortunately that was still solid, albeit with a bit of surface rust. The TT, though, has the tread plate trim stuck down with about 300m of double-sided tape each side, so it doesn't encourage me to remove it as it's easy to deform, being plastic / rubber with inlaid metal trim. If it wasn't for that, I could see that removing the plastic cover every year or two to rod it all out and re-apply wax would be a sensible idea. That said, the Audi coupe ones are just screwed on and I never did it with that.

 

[Smallfry]

Is that what they call a crumple zone?

No. A its a crumble zone.

 

[Morris]

Started today at 9-20 and just finished lunch break.
First job was to put a cut line on and cut along it.

The ends are worse than the other side,as expected. Once cut it pretty much fell off leaving the inner bits.

Next step was to get medieval on it and hack all the inner gubbins out. They probably provided strength but the weren't actually attached to anything, plus I think my sills are stronger

I've learnt from the other side and have changed my order of repair to make life easier for me. On the other side I cut out the rotten bits of inner sills, put the sill in and then made up the inner sills to suit. I should have repaired the sill first which makes access better.
I'm up to this point now. The inner sills has been cut to the correct height and I will do all the repairs before fitting the sill. You can see the very substantial chassis in this shot @mechman a very non crumple zone!

 

[Morris]

Finished for the day due to the temperature dropping, the light under the car would challenge owls and age related knackeredness.
I got most of the inner sills repaired. Cutting and fitting the patches is time consuming.

The back section, which will need more work later.

The front section is left to do. It's a bit of a mess and to gain more access I have now cut the bottom 4" of the wing off.

It looks bad but a bit of thinking will get it sorted.
Tomorrow is a rest day as we have a trip out which will definitely interest some on here, pics tomorrow evening and video if I can work out how to post it.

 

[Morris]

After our trip on Saturday and stuff to do on Sunday it was back on with it. The weather was predicted to be good and was. Perfect.
The scabby front section as seen above was tackled first. I bit the bullet and cut the lot off, then rebuilt in 1.2 steel. It's not pretty but it's strong (even though it's not structural).

Time to get the sill out. You can see how I made it in the photo. The angle on the back gets it close to the inner sills. If I could have got a measurement ( there was so much grot it was next to impossible) I could have made it exact.

Then wifey appeared with coffee.

Suitably refreshed I jacked the sill into position and got it tacked in place.

The back side was now ready to be filled in with folded 20x6 angle made from 1.2 mm sheet. This is how it looked prior to filling.

That's all done now and continuously welded. I've just got to replace the piece of wing I cut off and make good at the back of the sill where it used to meet the wheel arch. Used to because the rear wheel arches have dissolved. So they are next, but not in the near future.
I'm knackered now.