Errrrr Houston.. just blew the rear shock perch (pics included!)
200Kg of screed, a pot hole & 33" BFGs all conspired against me :-( Hi-res pics links below . Made for an interesting ride to say the least.
I know it can be done with body on, but I think given state of outrigger (which will have to be replaced) its going to be a body off job..
I've been looking for an excuse to upgrade my MIG )hmm. maybe time for TIG...)
Outrigger is 70mmx5mm I think. Might be an idea to uprate those too while I'm there (my 460 is already substantially non stock with Orc springs/ 2" lift/ panneled sides converted to van, so further mods are not a problem!)
Any advice anyone? How tricky is the body to take off once the 8 bolts are done?
On the plus side, I suppose that one benefit is that it will give me the opportunity to properly fit the fettled OM606/ Sprinter gearbox project I have been putting together .
users.fcpl.com/~ben/W460_blown_shock_perch/IMAG0334.jpg
users.fcpl.com/~ben/W460_blown_shock_perch/IMAG0335.jpg
a competent welder can sort this, there is no need to remove the body
Agreed, no need to remove the body. The shock mount is available from MB. It's tricky to weld but completely doable. A big mig is probably best as the angled torch will 'reach' around the back. For really awkward spots a stick can be usefull because you can bend the rod.
I agree with the above, two contributors, the job(s) are possible to do without lifting the body, but as you say, you itching for an excuse to lift the body.
The job in itself is not too bad but adding up the collective of little, but many jobs you need to do, in preparation of lifting the body makes it overall, tedious.
A side from the eight bolt you have already mentioned, you will have to disconnect all items that link the body to the chassis. These include, the radiator hoses, top and bottom, gear box and engine oil cooler pipes, brake pipe connections at the master cylinder, steering coulomb, Battery earth strap, engine earth strap, heater matrix hoses, accelerator cable, wiring loom connecting the alternator, gear shift links, fuel filler neck, fuel pump and pressure thingy (mind block - can't think of its proper name..) cradle detaching from the near side wheel arch.
There are other items such as lock diff. pipe work may be a brake hose or two, I am not absolute on that point; but hope it paints the picture.
Cheers,
Thanks for the advice guys..
It is a really annoying problem to have had.. it means my G will be off the road for a while now.
But its one of those jobs I guess that once its done won't need doing again for a very long time. My main concern about the body removal is actually how to lift the thing off since I don't have a ramp/ forklift to hand Any suggestions?
I've ordered the replacement perchs and spring mounts anyway. Benteller distribution - 01204 301 611 have very helpfully provided a 1M offcut of 70mm x 6.3mm wall seamless tube (£70) so that's all OK.
I think it is the time to spend money on a new welder as I have been unhappy with the quality of the Sealey MIG I have now.
I think for that thickness of material you are going to need something above 200amps. Do a bit of research on the internet as one of the main things about migs is the wire feed motor - most are small and when the welder is on full power it starves the tiny motors of current which in turn varies the wire speed causing stutter. Bigger motors seem to carry on and smooth out the fluctuations. Maybe the circuitry is better too.
Keep us iformed - this would make a good 'how to'
As always someone has "been there and done that"
http://www.pointedthree.com/disc/forums/showthread.php?tid=15650&posts=11&mid=177792&highlight=shock+perch+repair&highlightmode=1&action=search#M177792
My input on this solution would be, to jack the vehicle up at the front and rear axles and support these with good heavy-duty axle stands, used for commercials, not those poxy car stands used on cars, usually picked up for the likes' of Halfords.
You, will need high lifting and long reach jacks; hiring them would be cheaper, if available.
With more, but even taller stands, secure the body under the sill area. Use a strong block of wood to in between the stand and the sill, better still, to cut a groove in the block so to locate the lip of the sill, into the groove. Note, the base of these stands need to be short of the line, of the chassis frame, to allow you to roll the frame out, after the two sections are parted. You, might even have to fabricate the body stands yourself, if they can not be sourced.
After disconnecting all the items needed, to separate the frame from the body, carefully lower the frame, space allowing; roll that out from under, the body, if not, be prepared to remove the wheels. This will allow for more space, to drop and clear the body and some how drag or by carefully supporting and balancing your jacks under the axles, roll the frame out.
Voila,
You can do it in situ.
I did rear spring mounts by undoing but leaving in place the 6 chassis bolts, the rad top mount and steering column pinch bolt.
Just jack up bit by bit.. in 30mm stages to get up 60-70mm odd, jacking at front behind the front wheel first so that you do not put strain on the front wings (i.e. lift them first). Place wood between chassis and body as shown. Standard Axle stands were used to support rear of car but just onto chassis.
Always seems to be nearside rear, must be a design or manufacturing weakness
Might be a bit subtle but more salt on the nearside than on the crown of the road. and more potholes too.
Just a thought;)
Maybe but we have had salt on the roads only 2 or 3 winters in the last ten years or so but potholes yes, loads of those. Mine 1st went following an off road trip.
if you think of it, 200kg is not much at all
just the weight of 2-3 adults
it was going to go regardless, if you ask me.. :(
OK, so its decided.. I'm going to lift the body, do both sides properly and use the opportunity to do a bunch of other stuff I had planned.
I can't find anythins that looks robust enough to lift and leave the body up though and I don't have a ramp or forklift. Someone suggested block/ tackle and a scaffold A frame, but that sounds like a recipie for twisted body.
Following your suggestion though Rakesh I think I can fab some stands myself that willsubstantial enough to leave the body up for an extended period while I work on it.
1st pass at a design is attached. Mostly 3.6 and 5mm rectangular hollow section. Cut to length and priced @ around £150 a side. It will be a weekend to weld them, but once they are done the'll be useful to have around.
It will work by sitting the sills on the horizontal rails (on blocks of wood with a slot cut, which can be moved vertically up and down around the 90mm square post. I'll use hi-lift (60") jacks to do the lift, one per side and and then secure the rails with a couple of 1" hitch pins.
REPLY TO THREAD NUMBER 8:
Impressive drawings, did you do them yourself?
Concept works for me.
Cheers,
Thanks, yes done in Rhino which I have spent way too much time in over the years.
To be honest something like this doesn't take that much time to do (1-2hrs for these); the advantage of it is that they are scale-accurate though so you can take measurements/ angles/ calculate weight and volume directly.
There are much more sophisticated packages than Rhino (Solidworks is one of the best) that would be even better and much more flexible.. allowing you to performa engineering calculations/ model fluid dynamics and change parameters to have the enire model update as you change them.. I have never had the time to learn them properly (nor the £ to buy them!) unfortunately.
I've now priced this fully from these guys http://www.24hrsteel.com who can deliver everything cut to length.
Total cost is £275+VAT for the steel; so £165 per side is not bad I think given how substantial these will be.
The manual jacks are another £60 or so.. though I was just thinking that actually there wouldn't be a lot of difference in cost to put in a pair of hydraulic (manual) rams instead.
Re. welder. I really wanted to by a new TIG if I was going to spend the money, but I think on balance replacing my MIG with a more substantial unit will be a better bet for this.
Having spoken to TechnicalArc this morning they can supply their Oxford machines modified to start as low as 15A for bodywork so I think I'm going to buy the 240-1 and get rid of my Sealey Mighty Mig.
Now just need to work out how to pay for it :D
I'll start a thread in chassis section shortly to document the work.
An update on progress and something I'm stuck with...
Stands
Fabricated stands this weekend. Pictures attached.
Happy with how they have turned out. They are very substantial (the L/R outriggers proved superflous in the end as they are quite stable enough on the plates) and I think they will comfortably support the weight of the vehicle (though I'm just using them for the body).
My new welder - a Oxford 200A Migmaker (same company that makes MTA and Portamig) was a revelation too and worth every penny (supplied by Bob @ Youngmans in Twickenham - one of the few people who actually holds stock of the Oxford machines).
The difference between the quality of the welded output/ ease of use between it and the hobby Sealey Mighty Mig I had previously is just staggering. I've enclosed a picture of the first weld I did, out of the box which was probably slightly too hot, but the smoothneess of the feed/ consistency of the arc is fantastic which gives really nice looking welds.
I made good progress with steps to remove the body too.. I'm going to write all of this up into a 'how to' having taken photos as I go along.
Splitting UJs
One thing that I did get stuck with yesterday was splitting the steering column shaft at the U Join (picture attached). I need to do this to remove the body. Workshop manual doesn't cover it in detail though and the EPC seems to show a circlip that (on mine at least) doesn't seem to be there.
Any suggestions?
Steering U/J, you need to remove the bolt completely, put some penetrating oil on it and it should work loose. You may have to spread the coupling where it has a split milled in to it, but they come off ok. Try the other end if that end won't!
REPLY TO THREAD No: 16
Very nice welding, I wish I could achieve such quality, I would describe my welding as bird shit; I am sure it would make the 'Tate' as a piece of art work.
The splitting of UJ is, as described in the above thread, I would suggest using a broad and blunt chisel head in between the split; using a hammer to help spread the split, the shaft should remove.
Cheers, and nice work on the stands.
A few pics from my weekend..
Stands worked great! Very solid and quite easy to use (did everything on my own). All went smothly, except sheering off the back of the starter while undoing the bolt.
Work to replace both perch and shock mount on bth sides was fairly straight forward. Both were really rotten on closer examination, though almost zero corrosion anywhere else on the frame which was great.
Used a 6.3mm x70mm seamless tube to fabricate the replacements outriggers.
I'm going to try POR15 for this project - anyone had any experience?
Finaly - a mystery.. last picture - what look like send and return pipes to transmision.. shouldn't these have been connected somewhere
?
Hi
those pipes are breathers to keep the water out when fording.....
Pretty smart welding there, well done. I presume now you have the body off you'll want to clean everything and check for gasket leaks etc.
And a great review of the Oxford - another tool on my wish list;)
Well it's done now and with pretty welding .. but not sure I would want to be working under 2 stands like that that were not at least bolted down or had outriggers as you originally proposed. Your neck and all but 2 poster ramps are bad enough even when bolted down.
I used Rust Bullet instead of POR15 which was a fair bit cheaper but fairly sure the importer did not know what they were up to from a COSSH point of view! Similar sort of glowing USA reports.. but TBH a bit like hammerite.. sometimes it works sometimes it fails. I have moved on...;
1. Dinotrol FE-123 rust killer or similar (i.e turns rust black from organic replacements to phosporic acid)
2. Bilthammer Zinc rich primer .. tries to do galvanising in a tin. Practical Classic test had it as 6/6 for rust test compared to 3/6 for POR and 4/6 for hammerite. But it is soft so needs protection and it can peel if you get it thick in corners and use 2 pack paint on top for body panels.
3. Jotun Epoxymastic repair packs 2 part paint .. water proof for ships so fine for cars..
4. Coat with "colour" then if important .. otherwise Dintrol 3120 topped with 4910 (black death!) if under cover
5. Look at it every autum and wax your car paint (Colinite 476 is for boats etc) to keep as much water out as possible
.. get Jotun thinners to clean your brushes.. a lot of Xylene in it (i.e. like hammerite thinners) and relatively cheap (£12-20 for 5 litres?)
Still testing but the Jotun paint so far just stops any water penetration (which other paints do not hence things rust). The car restoration lot now swear by it (Frost and others sell it at 100% markup as 2 part chassis paint.. but it costs £50 for 9 litres)
Good job done there; to be honest the repair to mine was only the shock absorber tower, the spring holder was and still is fine, will you take the opportunity to raise the machine now that the job is 3/4 done?
Haha.. yes I think in truth it loos more precarious in the photos (which were take as I was jacking it up) than in reality.
Actually, all of the welding and work was done with the chassis pulled out the back anyway (you can see this in the second picture a bit better) so I wasn't working under it.
Also once it was at height, the stands had 1" hardened steel lynch pins running through the slides (i.e not held up on jacks!). My engine crane was alo employed at the back of the vehicle just to avoid any possibility of rearward fall.
The only possibility (other than a failure of the stands of course) was that the vehicle could have slipped off the horizontal supports I suppose (in practice sills were resting on rubber matt so actually didn't move) - for next time, I plan to fabricate 2 arms that will come off the horizontal bar to bolt through into the 4 middle boddy mount positions and 2 vertical props from 120x90 to guard against a failure. With those in I think think we should be good as stability otherwise on the 600x8mm steel base plates was fine.
Thanks for the advice re. rust proofing.
Its already raised on Orc springs and a 2" body lift.
I was suprised at how rotten the towers were - not at all obvious from external inspection either.. one of them literally disintegrated as I tried to unbold the rubber spring guide.
Other than a little on just one of the other middle body mount positions (DS front) which I'll replace as soon as I can figure out a part number for it (EPC doesn't show it al all as far as I can see), there was no rust anywhere else on chassis at all.
nice welding and thanks. For sharing
nice welding and thanks. For sharing
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Even to replace outrigger?
I was expecting that it would have to be cut off and ground back to frame before new one welded on.
My welding is reasonably tidy but it looks like it will be very difficult to reach some parts. I also do like to have things done well.. a quick 'good enough' fix isn't really my thing.
Looking in more detail, back and underside of the coil mounts are also quite rotten too, so I think its is sensible to do all in one go, perhaps if the 3 parts are assembled and welded (outrigger, perch and coil mount) first and then welded to the frame?