My Chassis Repairs for MOT

So, after the depression and anguish wondering what I was going to do having failed the MOT for rear end chassis rail rot close to the tow bar mounts, I decided to repair it. The sharp intake of breath at the garage and subsequent condemnation of my Disco made things desperate as I was clearly in that territory where it was not economical to consider paying for repairs. The amount of welding required was not obvious and could have been an open ended contract had I just said fix it please. A Richards galvanised chassis looked nice but at £1850 + VAT plus the labour to fit it was daft. My Disco is a 2000 yr model so 13 years old and so 13 years of all the other mechanical issues that would add to the chassis fix. I bit the bullet and rather than scrap it and buy another package of problems, decided to repair it myself.

I got myself a copy of RAVE and a Haynes and watched a LOT of welding videos on YouTube. Borrowed a MIG welder, ordered wire, grinding disc and cutting discs, a sheet of 3mm steel and dug out my socket set and trolly jack. Oh, and bought a pair of 3 ton axle stands.

The first challenge was finding a flat piece of ground to work on; my garage would have been perfect but it was full of 'stuff'! I had to clear a path into my garden (which involved digging out a flower bed and moving a few shrubs - more marital agro).

Finally, Disco in garden, SORNed and toolkit ready - so it began:

[photos to come when I work out how]

C'mon post the pics, we like pics, we do.

Pictures!!

:nopics::bored:

Well done and good luck with your project. i don't do welding so when I bought a new disco ,2002 face lift, with the intention of keeping it 10 years I treated all the parts that would rot !. It's still as good as new. MOT man always says how good it is, so I will be keeping it , don't much like the mew ones.

Anyone know how I can post the pics here? I've put a load onto Flickr but slow broadband has been giving me a few probs.

:clap2:

So, the rear rails looked pretty bad. Failed MOT and condemned to die!

Trim and carpet out, fuel pump cover off. I had already removed the 2 extra seats.

About to remove the fuel pump

Pump out

and after some careful syphoning...



... the fuel tank came out.

Where the tank used to be

Looks bad

Most of the visible rot is on the nearside rail

What am I thinking of; I can't repair this.

The crossmember seems sound; I was expecting it to be absolutely rotten!

Offside rail not looking great

looked much better on the outside

Perhaps the surface rust makes things look a lot worse than they really are