Discovery Sill Replacement

N80KRR said:

sorry to revive a 10 month old thread but only just read this and was hoping that someone could stop me being such a noob. I don't own a disco yet so haven't looked at sills, I have no background of fabricating or welding so a complete novice (father in law does it all, maintains 2ltr stock cars). If I were to buy a disco that will eventually need sills to be replaced, would i be correct in thinking this is pretty much how it would go?
1. cut outer sills off completely
2. make up box section to fit where sill originally was
3. weld box section to replace sill

obviously there will be niggles here and there but i'm trying to learn what it would take to replace the sills using this method.

thanks in advance

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See my thread mate. All there.

Cut out your rust. Try and keep as much of the sill sides as you can. No point in cutting away good metal. Make your box section 60x100 and cut as I stated above. 1400 long is fine but I made mine slightly longer and offered up prior to sloping the rear.

Weld in along seam and top edges. Any questions just pm me or post so others can see and help too.

how thick are the box sections gez ??

My box section was 3.2mm. Plenty thick enough and I will be welding I tree sliders ASAP so they will take that strain easily too

The box section i used to replace my sills was 120mm x 60mm which is a perfect fit just cut it to length.

does any one rate these easy on seal sections you can buy on ebay the kinda just cover over the seals and weld on ! mine arnt bad but this year will have to be done ? just thinking will make lift easier ... ??

or failing this ^^^^^^^^^ does any one in the south west do these and how much to do mine

i used em on mine.

i cut away most of the crap and these fit fine... simple to do... 1st welding i'd ever done on a car...

ideal maybe these are the way forward and they are alot cheaper and easier to fit if the rot aint to bad lol asyou get a sill kit inner and outter and pillers for like £127 ... and then mounts about £30 per side ........

Sorry I've not replied to any of this for a while. Not been well, Disco on SORN and various concerns with life in general ...

Any road up, the Disco sailed through MOT .. except I'd forgot to put ARB's back on .. so had to have a re-test!

I'll take some pictures tomorrow, or over the weekend as we're off up onto Rudland Rigg .. well seeing son in Middlesboro uni but it'd be rude not to visit the North end, at least, of RR while we're so close ..

Basically all I did to finish the sills was as it shows earlier to both sides, welded metal plate to body mounts where they were rusty, two at the rear cross-member were shot, then undersealed it all .. didn't bother even grinding back the welds, just cleaned it all up properly before under-sealing! It's now not our daily drive so doesn't need to be special, other than for laning and offroading. No rot in the boot floor, or cabin floor, non in the engine bay so not much else to say, it's a straight Disco ...

Be getting out on the lanes again soon, did a few locals the other day just to check everything out and 'get a feel' again .. I like the extra grip taking the ARB's off gives .. So hope to see some of you out again soon ..

Glad you are back in the Disco again having fun.

Cheers GH. Liked the write-up of your build, very entertaining with some good choices (and reasons for the choices) which might help a few others 'do it right' too ..

To finish, just been out to take a few pics of the finished articles .. all undersealed so notalot to see ..

Pics show both sides and in front of the rear wheels all filled and solid and one rear body mount .. all with some residual sand on due to <cough> testing ...

GreenHornet said:

take a 60mm wide RHS and then using a 2mm cutting disc cut it down the middle on the top edge only.mthen clamp and stitch weld it and the wedge shape it makes will allow you to get the steel right up to the underside of the floor whilst still retaining both sides of the sill box. You can then plug or pool weld the top edge and seam weld the sides.

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Hello greenhornet,

was this done because the inner sill was still in place?
I was under the impression from other threads on here that the box section would fit straight on.

cheers.

I kept my inner sill intact where it had strong metal, with discos how they are I couldn't bare to remove good metal lol.

My thinking was also that the inner sill would give evermore rigidity to the sill area which proved correct last weekend. I still haven't sorted my tree sliders out yet so my passenger door was caved in straight onto the sill. However all the strength of the metal meant only the door was sacrificed.

Once I put the box section in place I seam welded around the edges of the original metal and puddle welded the top. Lasted perfectly for the last six months hard labour!

Hi, just read this after spending two days welding the sills on my 93 200disco and i'm a bit gutted I never saw it before or I would have cut my sills clean off and done this instead very good idea, think i will wait till next require welding as I put a good bit of welding on mine. spanking job you have done there tho hats off to you.

If anyone is in need of replacement sills I have a pair available. I got my mate to make them for me and told him I wanted 2. He did me 2 pairs!!!

They have been made with rock / tree sliders already attached. If I remember rightly they just need the ends of the box section capping and then a lick of paint.

If anyone is interested drop me a pm and ill sort some pics.

pm sent

Hit here guys looking to get sills replace on my TDi 300 , I live in ollerton Mansfield area,
Do you know any guys who can do me a great job
Paul

Hi have you still got the sills, after some for my TDi. 300 want someone to fit them
Paul

Had no choice but to "steel" this idea