Category: Mrs. OkieRover

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Footwell Repair Part 2: Floor Panel Repair, Well Sort Of (Post #661) 7/6/2024

What a day.

I started out with all the intention I could muster to complete the floor pan. Unfortunately Fate had another plan for the day.

My plan started out solid. Paint the panels and while it dried see if I could get the Scion started and moved. The Scion as you may (or may not) remember is my son’s first car and he was still driving it until he was rear-ended by a mid-90s model Chevy pickup. The truck was moving at 35-40mph when he hit Rooster sitting still in bumper to bumper traffic. The pickup was completely disabled. The Scion had it’s rear tucked under and was touching the tires.

The though was it wouldn’t take that long to get the wheel wells pushed off the tires. I was wrong. The more I fought with it the hotter the day got and I finally reached my limit. So I went inside to cool off. I was watching the Germany-Denmark match when I got a call from Mrs. Okierover telling me the Honda Pilot with all of the grandchildren in tow would not start.

There is a whole long drama about a forgotten cell phone and a melt down of worry and a lot of really important details about how the battery got run down were left out. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Here we go.

  • Grandchild #1 left her cell phone at bathroom break an hour back up the road.
  • My oldest son who was following along in his car take said grand back to her phone.
  • Grandchild #2 melts down with worry.
  • Mrs. Okierover tells him to go sit in the car and calm down.
  • Grandchild #2 thinks he starts the car but places it in accessory mode and proceeds to sit in the car for more than 30 minutes.
  • Dead battery.
  • Not confident of the traveler’s ability to purchase and install a new battery I begin googling likely reasons of dead battery not aware of the 30 minute accessory episode.
  • Eventually Answers Online mechanic calls wife and diagnoses dead battery.
  • Oldest son returns and we attempt to jump battery.
  • Battery is buried under the air intake and only the positive is visible.
  • Plastic parts removed we finally ground to an engine lift point.
  • Car is started.

I learned a lot watching Law and Order: Criminal Intent and I use all those skills to interrogate everyone after they all arrive home. I had the battery tested and it was good, just needed a charge. I also watched a video about placing a new mount which is easy to reach for jumping. So I installed that M6 1.0 bolt and marked it for future reference.

So long story longer, the day was a complete loss. The following day I did get the Scion sorted out and back to running thanks to a sawzall (aka reciprocating saw), a floor jack, a 4 pound hammer, and gravity.

Next week end we’ll get more done ON THE BIG WHITE BUS…hopefully.

Happy Independence Day.

Thanks for reading, like and subscribe, and Happy Rovering.

https://youtu.be/gHdUjYCurx4
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Footwell Repair Part 11: Wheel Well Panel (Post #658) 6/19/2024

In this post I talk about making my replacement panel for the front passenger side wheel well. I went to Chickasha Industrial and bought a piece of scrap 20 gauge. It will be just the right amount for the fender and the floor panel. Happy I didn’t have to buy a giant sheet.

I started by making my measurements and then checking them again. After I finished that I checked the measurements again. In the video I show how I needed to have a trapezoid shape. And after typing trapezoid in this post I realize I have spelled it wrong in this post, which is being exported as I type up this post. Oh well…..

I referenced “Mephisto’s Trapezoid” from the 1981 Pee Wee Herman – Live at the Roxy show which was on HBO. It’s one of my favorite shows to watch and was the inspiration for Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Captain Carl, played by the amazing Phil Hartman, tells his story to Pee Wee about getting lost in Mephisto’s Trapezoid. Comedic genius.

I cut the steel and then measured again. I made some bends to get the inner edge and the back lip right. After getting the panel made I could tell I needed to make some adjustments to the fender well too. So I did some hammer and dolly work and got everything sorted. I also had to adjust my panel after I got everything sorted. No biggy.

I dry fitted the panel at least six times. I’m pretty sure I can get it into place with just a few plug welds. I’m going to try my hand tomorrow at modifying a broken drill bit to make a plug weld bit. If that doesn’t produce results I’ll probably run to a welding shop and see what I can find. The gist of this is you can paint everything and seal it with whatever then remove just the part of the paint you need to weld.

This is a giant experiment because the entire floor pan in the back is going to be done this way. The holes are there and all I’ll need to do is get the Z bar in place and make a crap ton of plug welds. Then I can get the entire seam sealed with bedliner and or whatever.

That’s pretty much it for now.

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https://youtu.be/nPFNPa3TgQY
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Footwell Repair Part 10: Fender Prep (Post #657) 6/10/2024

In this post I intended to patch the fender with a new panel. I only have a small  section of the steel sheet I bought. Before the work I started today I needed a 10″x8″ piece. My patch area was about 7 inches with a 9 and a half panel with a half inch bend on one side.

From last week we found 4 sheets of steel sandwiched on the one side. Two of those are seemingly superfluous. In between each sheet was a nice rust stuffing. So its pretty obvious all that needs to be remediated.

I got the air chisel out and went to town. I split all the steel and cut away the rusted parts. I wire wheeled as much of the rust away and in the end covered everything with the rust mitigation paint I bought.

I will need to get a new sheet of steel to finish this piece. The patch I need to make is now going to need to be a inch after the bend perhaps more. I’ll cover every piece of steel with the rust paint. I think the way they screwed the panels together might work. I can also see how I could spot weld the panels together. This would also be good experience for welding the bed back into place. I will also be covering everything in seal sealer and several liberal applications of bedliner/rhino-liner or whatever it is called.

Thanks for watching, like and subscribe, and Happy Rovering.

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Footwell Repair Part 9: Seam Sealer (Post #656) 6/3/2024

In this installment I apply seam sealer to the most recently welded “L”. Seam sealer was not how I wanted to seal this joint up. I wanted it to be welded closed. That is just not possible. It wasn’t originally built that way. I can only hope the seam sealer I’m using will last long enough for me to quit this Overlanding Hobby.

I also look at the floor patch I’m going to need to build. I talk about the two structural bends in the panel. I saw the guy on Make It Kustom [Youtube] build a jig and a tool to make these kinds of bends. You can look through his videos to find it. I’m going to think long and hard about this before I tackle this problem.

It might be fun to build the jig. I will need to buy a router bit to get the jig in the right shape. I’ll probably need to build a special air hammer bit like he did too. It would be a one off fix. I don’t think I will ever tear this apart again.

It’s a short video and I know it’s über riveting content watching me smear seam sealer. In my defense I didn’t have time to produce anything else this weekend. Saturday we visited the Evil German Dude and his lovely wife. Paparazzi Ford was there too. The Evil German Broad made brunch for us and we all got to catchup on the latest happenings and see their almost finished “cabana”. That’s what the county commissioners called it for tax purposes.

It’s an amazing space and it took a lot of forethought, planning, engineering to make it as awesome as it is. Several things I saw had me comparing how much time I’ve spent thinking about the future state of the Big White Bus. I know I’ll have some great ideas that will need additional thought and probably re-engineering to get them right.

I picked up a parts washer from EGD too while I was there. So that’s pretty cool. That’s all for this week. Like and subscribe to the blog and the Youtube channel.

Patreon.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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Footwell Repair Part 8: Finishing an “L” for the Bulkhead (Post #655) 5/26/2024

I have some good news and I have some bad news….

The good news…I have the swimming pool setup and I’ve been in it twice this weekend.

The bad news…I still suck at welding. In my defense this part of the Range Rover Classic is a mish-mash of panels converging into a very small space. There are no less that three different pieces in this area that are plug welded and the gaps filled with seam sealer. In a future video when I build the rest of of the upper wheel well, I will point out the three layers of panels that go into building the wheel well. It’s so convoluted that screws were even used to hold the parts together. SCREWS!

Anyway. I build my replacement parts and attempted to get them married together. Ironically I have three pieces of metal to get this done. Well four if you count the patch of the side bulkhead.

Did I say it was hard to weld under there? NO? Well it’s damn hard to weld under there. You have basically two positions. Mashed up against the wheel hub and laying on the ground with welding slag (molten metal) falling on you. Both, super awesome as you can well imagine.

I said I was swimming earlier in this post. While sitting on the patio drying off Mrs. Okierover noted the weird red scratches on my right arm. I told her they were from being mashed up against the hub.

Manufacturing the repair pieces was a bit of folly too. I had to make the “L” three times. First time was an experiment to see if I could make a bended L. The second was because I measured the piece without the floor panel in the right place. The third time was a charm or I decided that was going to be the last time I made it and I made it work.

Don’t get me wrong, careful thought was expended. A LOT of thought. And in the end I was still wrong but not by much.

With a lot of clamping and grinding and grunting I have the pieces welded together. The welds are ugly. A lot of seam sealer will be used to discourage water from coming in these seams. Probably about as much as was used by the factor but the difference is my metal is covered with primer. Theirs was not. To protect this section I will rely on primer, at least three coats. Rust encapsulator will also be liberally applied. And over that, rhino/bed liner. Inside the cab will also be a layer of Fat Mat.

Will all this work and product prevent rust? Probably not. Who are we kidding? The Range Rover Classic was built to rust. The goal was that it rusted out on the second or third owner. I had the added bad luck that my Range Rover was a victim of a front end wreck before I owned it. Sports and Classics did the best they could to weld a donor front end on to the rear half. And I’m doing my best to keep rust at bay the best I can.

There were 19 segments filmed over two days. I left a lot of the welding out of the video. Mostly because it was difficult enough for me to get into place to weld, there really wasn’t any room for a camera.

It was hot in the shoppe too. Temps at or above 100F (37.8 C for those of you living in countries that have never had a man on the moon). The camera overheats when I’m filming in these temps. So the camera sat on the air conditioner when I wasn’t filming. I wonder if anyone makes a camera that can do warmer temps? My next camera will be evaluated for temps.

This weekend was Memorial Day.
Freedom is not free. So many have given everything they had to keep you free.
Remember those and their great sacrifice.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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Footwell Repair Part 3: Investi-Disassembly (Post #651) 4/12/2024

thumbnail Footwell Part 3

UGGGGGH!!!!!!
Will this ever end?

I think I know the answer to that. But I have to show my exasperation. This rust find is possibly the worst thing ever. It’s in the most terrible of locations.

Mrs. Okierover said, “Maybe you should call it Rusty Rover instead of Okierover.”
She’s not wrong.

Every where there’s red its rusted through.

It’s as bad as you can imagine. There are at least four different panels converge in this area to form the firewall, fender well, and the foot well.

There are a LOT of peripherals that run through there too. Including the fuel lines which I may have nicked when I was air chiseling the panels out. If you’ve followed the blog for very long (at least since 2010) you’ve seen The Evil German Dude and I attempt to fix the floor pan when it rusted out.

The one where I catch myself on fire in the furtherance of Land Rovering (post 234) 12/21/2010

We had fun, but we failed to keep the water out and our work finally failed. I had an ongoing issue with water getting in and wetting the fargin’ OPEN CELL floor pads under the carpets. The carpets too we constantly wet. I found the place where water was getting in making the carpet wet. It was through the firewall at the corner where it married up to the side wall.

As you will see in the video, this rust is bad. Real bad. The repair is going to be really difficult and probably beyond my skill set. That being said, I have to fix it myself. There is no money to send it off. The body work itself would likely cost more than the entire vehicle is worth.

I’ve still got a LOT of work to do. I need to find a solution. It will probably be welding several panels together. I’ll need to study it more to make my mind up.

I stared at it at least an hour while I shot the video. Still struggled to sort out a concrete idea.

I am going back out the weekend this is published as OkieF150. We are going to the 200th Celebration of Fort Gibson. Fort Gibson is the oldest town in Oklahoma. Way back when it was still Indian Territory the United States needed a fort to protect the trade from this area.

We are going to make a weekend out of it and I’m hoping we can get some fishing in while we are at it. This will be the last overlanding trip for this year as I will be spending every weekend for the rest of the year trying to sort out all these issues.

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Thanks for reading, and Happy Rovering.

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