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  • Estate boot plastic removal Question

    Hello Everyone

    Has anyone removed the plastic interior wheel arches from an estate car.
    Need to remove the steel cross beam that supports the rear seats to enable some welding to be done in the front corners of the spare wheel well.

    many thanks
    Africar

  • #2
    Hi Everyone

    Here is an update on my question above. To move the plastic wheel arch covers, I unbolted the back door wedge shaped fitting, removed the hook thing above that, unscrewed the little posi fixing in the middle of the glass. You will need a 5/16" socket on a long extension bar to undo the rear seat locking system, it would be a good idea to have a magnetic pencil to grab the small bolts, to pull them up through the hole. You will have to remover the door rubber seals on each end of the plastic cover. I also removed the recess boxes.
    You will need to unbolt the seat belt anchor points bolts = 17mm. There are two fixing on the floor closing strip at the bottom of the rear door, they need to be removed.
    I was then able to slide up the plastic cover up out of the way.


    To get the seat deck out of the way, so that welding can be progressed on the floor, that is in front of the spare wheel recess, the seat need to be removed. This is a relative easy job.

    You can then see that the floor deck has been spot welded around the curve of the wheel arch. The Deck has two top hat channels running right across the vehicle and the very ends of these channels are also spot welded to the curved bracket, which in turn, is welded to the wheel arch.

    I have started to remove the spot welds by drilling them out. Not an easy job. More Later


    Comment


    • #3
      Yes, as far as I remember there are a fair number of bits & pieces holding them in, but nothing too hard to deal with..sounds as though phase two might have been the hard part!

      Comment


      • #4
        What made me start this job, was my car/workhorse failed on the MOT, which I was not expecting it to do. I have had my Montego for about 28 years or it could be even longer as I have had a number over the years but this one has lasted the longest. It is an 7 seater, with load levelling suspension.
        FOP failed the Mot on the rear suspension turrets and the rubber bushes which sit on the top of the struts.

        I had to choose to a) repair it = unknown workload, b) scrap it, c) spend my time on getting my second estate back into running order, d) get another type of vehicle.

        As you can see from my previous postings, I have decided to repair FOP.
        Little did I know that the turrets was only the start of the damage done by the Rust Rat.
        This repair job is turning out to be like the song/tune, "hole in the bucket" or something like that.
        The main reason why there is rust damage, is that the under-seal has peeled away on the panel joints under the car.

        It all looked good until I went to repaint chassis after giving FOP a birthday by going through a car wash. After poking around with a screw driver it revealed large patches of rust, which was being covered up by loose under-seal.

        I have taken some photos of what I found when I removed the rear strut.

        More to come later.

        Comment


        • #5
          The reason I have posted these photos, you may notice, what looks like a dated printed on this label.
          What I would like to know is; IF the date is correct, it say March 1986, my car was registered in 1992, So where was my car before it was put on the road?? Surely it did not take The Rover Group that long to build it.

          The label was, still is stuck to the inner face of the plastic wheel arch panel. Can anyone put some light on this?

          The spot welding removal has been brutal, there is going to be a fair bit of tin bashing to do to get the deck back into shape i.e. flat.

          More later

          Africar

          Comment


          • #6
            I'd guess that 10086 is more likely to be a part or batch number than a date, somewhere on the panel will be a moulded in 'clock' with year and month on, if it says '86' I'll be eating my words ha ha ha...

            Comment


            • #7
              Thank you Doctordiesel77 for your input, I will have a look for the stamp.

              Ok you have seen the photos of the hole, which should have been the top of the rear turret, which in turn, supposed to be anchored point for the rear strut.
              This was the time I took the decision to repair the car but before I made a start I thought I would try to track down the suspension top rubber donuts, I must thank Alan from Rimmers for giving me the part number Nam 1181. Using this number I which I typed into Google and found them on this forum. Minitechnique 01253 790189 was able to supply me with 6 donuts, one for each self levelling strut that I have.
              By the way, they are called NIVOMAT 60-120-0. Just for information you might be able to use the modern version from a Volvo CX90 or something like it. I am given to understand, back in the day these struts were fitted to Mercedes.

              So now I could move forward with the repairs, making a doubled curved strut turret from a flat piece of sheet steel is, .- - - Hum, interesting but I have managed it. I have fashioned the top rubber mount holder from a piece of pipe, however the lower donut is a funny size I may have to turn up a piece of solid steel to get the correct shape, then weld it onto the strut turret. At the time of posting, I have not done this yet.

              So having dismantled the passengers side rear suspension it wasn't as bad as the drivers side, so I was able to remove the plastic mastic/sealant around the top of the housing, yes the rust rat had been having a nibble at this area but with a bit of scrubbing away the rust I managed to weld it back into place.


              More later as the football is just about to start.


              Africar

              Comment


              • #8
                With the passenger rear strut turret now fixed and painted over, I found, what looked like a small area of rusty steel below the turret in line with the bottom edge of the inner wing.
                After tapping it with a screwdriver a larger patch of rust disintegrated measuring 6x4" (150x100).
                However I never leant from this mistake.

                Now I needed to replace this with good steel, which I did after shaping it to the contours of the inner wing. Behind this piece of inner wing is a small bracket that spans the gap between the chassis rail and the inner wing, this was ok. To weld this bracket to the new piece, I drilled through the 2mm thick piece of sheet steel, spot in line with the bracket, enabling welding through the hole to the bracket.
                This was a mistake. Why because I did not see the amount of damage the rust Rat had done to the floor at this moment in time.


                A Word of warning is due here. Using a Grinderette inside the car can cause a lot of unseen damage, i.e. the sparks WILL hit some surface or other somewhere inside the car.
                Protect the glass from the inside using thick cardboard/carpet or anything that is suitable.
                As my Montego is a workhorse and it shows that it is, I am not too concerned about the upholstery but this will also get damaged.

                Back to the next shock that hit me,
                The first photo is the first sight of what happened when I used the same screwdriver again and again it went up through the floor, right above the main suspension pivot anchor point.
                The second and third photo was taken from the inside after the curved flooring support bracket was cut out, with a thin bladed grinder.

                Please read the above posts concerning the removal of the floor deck,

                More to come later.


                Africar

                Comment


                • #9
                  That's quite a common area to rust, hope you get it sorted with a welder
                  1958 Ford Consul Convertible. I love this car
                  1965 Ford Zodiac Executive. Fab cruiser being restored
                  1997 Jaguar Xk8 Convertible. Such a fab car
                  2004 MGZT cdti. Great workhorse
                  2004 MGZT V8. I love this car

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    After cutting a cardboard pattern for the top of the repair piece of steel plate 2mm thick and allowing 60mm down stand on the width, I managed to bash it into shape using a 2lb lump hammer and a big vice, I eventually got it to fit around the wheel arch inner wing from the inside. This took quite sometime as it was a bit of trial and error job. I found that a floor board (timber) type lever/crowbar just the tool to do this.
                    Having got to this stage I finally thumped it into place.

                    With a bit of luck you should find a number of layers of thin sheet steel at the front of the inner wing/inside face of the sill that are pressed or was pressed together.
                    I managed to split these apart thus allowing the new shaped panel to go in between the original body panels.

                    Here are some photos the black panel is the finished job after I mig welded right along the rim of the inner wing and then the floor. The white panel is for the driver side, but shows how I shaped it up.
                    I drilled 10mm holes through this steel to allow to weld through them, so that I could get to the remaining bits of chassis rails below the new panel. This also applied to the brake hose pipe hanging bracket.

                    Still more bits of welding to do on the inner wing, however I still have the top of the suspension turrets to construct and fix it into place.
                    More bad news; that rust rat has started having a go at the gutter line above the rear passenger door.
                    Is this a common problem for this age Montego as my other one has the same.

                    more to come later.

                    regards
                    Africar

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      This is an update on the repairs to my FOP rear strut turret. It has taken a lot of bending and bashing a flat piece of flat 3mm sheet steel into a shape that will make good the rust rat damage.
                      It took quite a while to get the shape right and drilling the hole into the finished shape was a challenge. It looks a bit rough but it will do the job once it is welded into the car.

                      The rear inner wheel arch is actually made up of two skins, which helps with the welding of thicker material of the 3mm steel.

                      After checking the angles and location of the new turret, I did this by fitting the self levelling struts back into place. I drilled two holes right through the whole lot, this enabled me to bolt the turret into place while I set up to weld both the inner and outer wheel arch to the new turret. This took quite a time to do this as my legs would kept complaining with pain with being crushed up in the back.
                      It did not help when the welder kept over heating and cutting out to cool down.

                      Anyway here are some photos of before and after the welding.

                      4Fitting the struts back in was rather odd as I had the rear axle on full droop, I found that I had to grind out a bit of clearance from the strut lower anchor point to get the top of the strut to line up with the hole in the body, this also applied to the original undamaged turret.

                      The last photo is what it looked like when I started hitting the rust out.
                      However FOP should pass the MOT next week.

                      All the best
                      Africar

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Looks good, at least you'll never need to do it again! I vaguely remember the strut being a bit of a pain to line up on mine, I don't remember grinding it, but can't remember what I did do. Good luck with the mot

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          This is an update
                          It seems years have gone by since I last updated this saga of repairing damage done by the rust rat.
                          I mentioned I was going for a new MOT.

                          No this did not happen because while I was under the estate car I stupidly took a look at a small bit of rust that was showing at the bottom of the rear passenger foot well. That was a mistake.
                          I had to remove all the carpet, some sort of plastic coating that should have been stuck to the floor.
                          Lifting all this out of the way revealed a large amount of rust, most of this was caused by water leaking through a small hole which a plastic bung/clip should have been.

                          I ended cutting out a large area i.e..21x 8 inches of rust, right at the back of the foot well.
                          Bending it to shape was relatively easy to do, however it also involve welding a total length of 12 feet. Why this length; because it had to be double welded on all four edges of steel, i.e. inner and outer sides of the new patch to the original floor.


                          I opened the passenger front door and a shower of rust flakes dropped on the floor.
                          I am now really testing my desire to keep these Montego going, i.e. I have found even more rust rat damage along the roof line. As mentioned before, this problem is on my other Montego estate.

                          Having removed the gutter plastic strip that runs along the roof line and removing the rear glass top cover strip, showed that this area would also need cleaning up but as the glass is bonded into the body in this area, it will not be easy. It turned out not to be as bad as it first look.
                          I have used a rotary wire brush to remove any loose rust and then coated the steel with Rustin rust converter liquid. I then painted over this.


                          If I had known it would take me this amount of my spare time over 5-6 weeks I would have thought twice about keeping both my Montego's. It is almost getting to the time to look at the alternatives.

                          So this bring up the question; Why do I want to keep this vehicle.
                          1) It saved me from a 40 mile hike back home, when the massive floods hit the Thames Valley in 2007, how, because the air intake is high up in the bonnet, above the radiator. I was able to wade through the flood water, whereas these modern cars have air intake at the bottom. i.e. a 6 cylinder Audi thought he could do the same as me, that cost him a new car.
                          2) No electronics
                          3) The shape of the Montego estate has a long flat roof, which is great for carrying large sheet material.
                          4) On a flattish road, plodding along at 50mph, with the Perkins diesel, I get 56 to the gallon.
                          I changed the gearbox to the high ratio box from a Montego saloon.
                          5) I know every last nut and bolt on these Montego's.
                          6) With the seats down or even missing now, it is like having a large van, where you can just throw stuff in, and knowing that you have the carrying space to do it.
                          7) There is not many left, which has its good side and the bad.

                          Of course there is the down side

                          So what is your excuse to keep your Montego?

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            My excuse is similar to yours..nobody has made a more cost effective and space efficient estate car. Years ago, when they were plentiful, the fallen got scrapped & bits used to fix the 'new ' one..now they must be repaired! Also I'd feel bad if I was the one that was responsible for cutting the million mile Montego off in it's prime

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              This is an update 04-9-2021

                              My Diesel Montego Estate has just and finally passed the MOT.
                              This was not easy as it failed a "second" MOT test.
                              While I was repairing the floor pan right along the passenger side, under edge of the sills/foot well area.
                              That rust rat ran across to the driver side and had a go at the rear inner sill, including the web, which is close to the main rear suspension pivot point. = Mot failure.
                              The guys that pass my house while walking their dogs, have stopped to see how much work was still needed.

                              The outcome of this struggle to keep the Montego going, is that I have managed to keep another Montego on the road.
                              By the response from the neighbours was about right, when I told them the good news, it's about time you stopped making all that racket..
                              I mentioned the car should last another two years, their general comment was "I like your optimism"

                              all the best
                              Africar

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