Plus 2 sill replacement

[elan_fan]

I've been doing the sills on my Plus 2S. Anyway I thought I would post up some pics as I progressed through the job. I've removed the seats and carpet and disc ground both sides of the retaining screws. Gently eased the halves of the fibreglass and here we have the old sill. laying on the floor, it kind of fell out of the gap. The car has 57000 miles on it. The new sills are spyder items and have spyder rear wishbones to fit at the same time along with Mrs Millers driveshafts and a pair of recon rear calipers. First pic:

regards
Mark

[gerrym]

Mark, was the fibreglass around the fasteners in good order, or somewhat decayed and split? Regards

[elan_fan]

It was fine on the outside flange which is about 3/16 thick, the inside will need repairing where the sandwich plates go as the fibreglass has been compressed and slighlty "eaten" by the rusty metal.

regards
Mark

[gerrym]

Mark, that sound familiar. It's worth repairing the damage caused by the rusty metal. Polyester doesn't like the low pH caused by the rust.

Regards
Gerry

[aussieelan]

Sounds very familiar!

Just finished doing mine a month or so ago ... I was amazed at the pile of rust they created. The glass where the fittings went was considerably deteriorated ... the 3/8" holes had become 1" holes. After a good grind back, and a couple of layers of 32oz mat, everything was good again. The only challenge was re-drilling the rear-most holes ... not alot of room to get a drill in there. I also found a few of the lower sill bolts had damaged the glass as they rusted ... and a number pulled through when being removed. Always good to check and reglass in this area too.

All I need now is to get my door hinge pins back from being re-made in stainless and we'll be back on the road ... until the next thing ....

[elan_fan]

Did you slide the new ones in from the front or the back?

regards
Mark

[aussieelan]

I dropped the top ball joint and slid the old ones out ... and the new ones in from the front. Worked very well.

I followed the write up here

[martinbrowning]

Did mine from the rear whilst the suspension was off,so either end is possible.

Martin B

[elan_fan]

Bit of a progress report, I've glassed up the damaged fibreglass on the inside of the sill, using squares of glass with the edges teased so as to blend in better. I've removed the front upright ready to slide the sill in from the front. I used a cone cutter to pop the holes in the fibreglass and modded it a bit with the disc grinder so that a socket would fit over the end to allow me to use a ratchet on it to cut the difficult to get at holes by the side of the rear seat.

regards
Mark

[elan_fan]

Spyder sill in positon, lift sill to position and clamped bolts on the inner plates. Drilled outer ends first with fibreglass supported and pushed up flush with the floorpan. Drilled 4 centre holes from the inside of the car and the drill came out through the centre of the hole in the overhanging fibreglass. This was to retain the original alignment. I have bought 2 pieces of aluminium to paint black and use as a finisher over the outside of the sill where the 11 retaining bolts are.

regards
Mark

[gerrym]

Mark, even Aussie cars are affected by the rustbug?. How is the rest of the car. Have you checked the support under the rear window. On mine the rust had just started to get hold of that, due in part to some carpet the a PO had put there, no doubt to cure some rattle. However it formed a pretty good moisture trap.

Regards

Gerry