The 75 and ZT Owners Club Forums - View Single Post - Sills

Sonic ZS · 20th June 2019, 19:48

As our cars get older, the problem of rusty sills is becoming increasingly common in posts on this forum. With that in mind, I thought I'd get some pictures up of what is hidden inside your shiny outer skin

Chances are, the thought of chopping a whole sill off their beautiful pride and joy will fill many members with dread

but realistically most cars will only ever need the rear 18" or so repaired. So hopefully, this'll help anyone that wants to fabricate and weld their own, or give some clues to garages or mechanics that are employed to repair them BEFORE they start attacking the corrosion.

To make life easier, these pictures are taken in the workshop and show a complete drivers sill/floor side section that I've very roughly cut from a scrap ZT-T (thank you Oxfordblue

), and is going to be used to repair the sill on S542AOX.

You could cut the actual outer sill straight from the car, but it's not the easiest job, so it's much simpler to just cut the whole lot off the scrap vehicle roughly using an angle grinder/plasma cutter and large chisel, then do the careful drilling out of approx 80 spot welds and panel preparation on the bench at a sensible height

This shows the whole sill section (inner, outer and floor edge) as cut from the donor car:
Complete sill section..jpg

And what it looks like from the other side....this is the inner sill and bottom few inches of the pillars:
Complete Inner Section..jpg

To split the whole section open, firstly use a heat gun to warm the stone chip and scrape it off. Each spot weld can then be dot-punched, drilled through and finally cut away with a spot weld drill. There's about 80 on each sill:
Removing Stonechip..jpg

And here I've cut a slot in the top (waste) section to reveal one of the foam noise diaphragms. There are two (one at each end, near the jacking mounts) and attached to the outer sill like the proverbial 'Poo to a blanket'... Once you have access, the heat gun will again make the foam go soft and they can be prised away, allowing you to remove the outer sill panel:
Foam Diaphragms..jpg

20th June 2019, 19:48	#1
Sonic ZS Posted a thing or two 75 Conn CDT Tourer, 75 Conn SE V6, 75 Conn V6, 75 Conn CDTi Tourer, ZS 180 Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Devon Posts: 1,986 Thanks: 1,287 Thanked 963 Times in 534 Posts	Sills - What's inside yours...??? As our cars get older, the problem of rusty sills is becoming increasingly common in posts on this forum. With that in mind, I thought I'd get some pictures up of what is hidden inside your shiny outer skin Chances are, the thought of chopping a whole sill off their beautiful pride and joy will fill many members with dread but realistically most cars will only ever need the rear 18" or so repaired. So hopefully, this'll help anyone that wants to fabricate and weld their own, or give some clues to garages or mechanics that are employed to repair them BEFORE they start attacking the corrosion. To make life easier, these pictures are taken in the workshop and show a complete drivers sill/floor side section that I've very roughly cut from a scrap ZT-T (thank you Oxfordblue ), and is going to be used to repair the sill on S542AOX. You could cut the actual outer sill straight from the car, but it's not the easiest job, so it's much simpler to just cut the whole lot off the scrap vehicle roughly using an angle grinder/plasma cutter and large chisel, then do the careful drilling out of approx 80 spot welds and panel preparation on the bench at a sensible height This shows the whole sill section (inner, outer and floor edge) as cut from the donor car: Complete sill section..jpg And what it looks like from the other side....this is the inner sill and bottom few inches of the pillars: Complete Inner Section..jpg To split the whole section open, firstly use a heat gun to warm the stone chip and scrape it off. Each spot weld can then be dot-punched, drilled through and finally cut away with a spot weld drill. There's about 80 on each sill: Removing Stonechip..jpg And here I've cut a slot in the top (waste) section to reveal one of the foam noise diaphragms. There are two (one at each end, near the jacking mounts) and attached to the outer sill like the proverbial 'Poo to a blanket'... Once you have access, the heat gun will again make the foam go soft and they can be prised away, allowing you to remove the outer sill panel: Foam Diaphragms..jpg __________________ Last edited by Reebs; 13th July 2019 at 08:42.. Reason: Language Timothy!