I’m getting real close to finishing the C pillar repairs. I had one final repair to finish. The patch over the rust at the bottom of the C pillar. If you know Range Rover Classics this is where the sunroof drain comes out and runs down the back of the wheel well. This is a popular place for rust to setup shop and eat your precious Range Rover Classic.
So instead of “fixing it” just like it was designed, which was poorly executed. Poorly because they didn’t protect any of the inside surfaces. Poorly because, seriously, holes in a wheel well where water, salt, sand, dirt, animal parts, and just about anything else you can imagine can hide? Super stupid. That sounds harsh, but you shouldn’t design an offroad vehicle that descended from the amazing history of Land Rovers in such a way that you can’t use it in the environments it was designed to live in.
I spent a lot of effort to shape the patch. I also devised a way to hold it in place so I could weld it there. A strategically placed bottle jack and a length of pipe. I called it the trapeze of stupidity in the video. I’ve done dumber things. This one actually worked really well.
After turning up the welder a tad, and increasing the wire speed to compensate the upside downed-ness of this welding. I saw a couple of videos where guys were welding some structural steel and they suggested uping the wire speed and voltage. That seemed to work. My problems were with the primer I painted on the fender and the patch. And at some point I think my ground was not very good. This lead to some very poor welds which I had to grind off…. several times. Eventually I got everything sorted out and the welds started holding.
Once I had the patch in place and covered in primer I took a look at the rest of the rear quarter panel. I cleaned up some surface rust and coated it with primer. I know this is only to slow the rust down but it felt good to do it.
I got all the patches on the quarter panel covered in seam sealer. Everything also got a final coat of primer. Over the primer, under the wheel well, I put on two coats of rattle can bedliner. It is my sincere hope that this will keep some rust at bay for at least a few years.
I have all the wrap up to do now including reassembling the quarter panel and reinstalling the mud flap assembly. That will be the next video. After that, I will be working on the passenger side B pillar.
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