Chapter 10 - The Arc de Triomphe

Now that the inside of the front arch was repaired, we moved on to the rear of the passenger side, the task being that i wanted to get all the inner arch repairs finished on one side before any exterior panels were fitted, plus this gives us sooo much better access to carry out the repairs then if the wings were in place.

 

 I mentioned earlier in this blog, that we'd encountered a small structural issue. On the drivers side, right above the rear trailing arm mount, where the mount is attached to the body, the panel had rusted through, and required attention. So due to the removal of the passenger side rear arch, i decided to investigate this one as well,

A bit of poking revealed some rust and a small hole, but once a large section in front of the arch was cut away, the extent could be viewed, and it became obvious that this too needed serious attention.
What we've done is get some heavier grade steel for these parts, 3mm thick (the original is only about 1.5mm) We're re-enforcing  these parts for added strength for when we have the EJ20K engine (Subaru Wrx STi )

We're quietly hoping this mod will give us added rigidity, and cut down in the flex suffered by these types of mount

Obviously, we couldn't just leave this big hole, and as we found out to our surprise, the new arch wont cover these parts we've cut out, so some serious engineering was required

Lee#s done a damn fine job at fabricating this panel out a bit of that sheet steel we got for patching up the van

You'll have to forgive lee, he's a bit camera shy, next time we'll pull his kecks down around his ankles and when he pulls them up and swears at us, maybe i'll get a good facial shot ;)

As you can see in this shot, This shows how short the new rear panels are

 Right, time to get this one in and finished

Sorted, get some paint on it to protect it,

now to the inside bit,

As you can see this too was a bit of a mess, so we cleaned up the area to prepare for a plate

Cut out the rot as per normal

Make a plate

Insert a new plate

WARNING - please don't stare for too long at my photographs, no responsibility will be accepted for any discomfort or temporary blindness from staring at the welding pictures :P 

Not sure if my caption should read

"Keep Britian Tidy"

or 

"Recycle"

or

"Keep Calm & Camper Van"