Welding Her In Doors Fiesta - Sheffield

[mitch205gti 1]

Hi,

 

Other half took her X reg fiesta in for its MOT yesturday and it failed on:

 

Corroded brake pipe

Rear nearside shock deteriorated

Front offside coil spring fractured (told best to replace both)

 

All easy enough to replace!

 

But then rust on both sills:

 

 

They have quoted £100 to patch both sides up, does this sound resonable and how hard would this be to do my self with my dads cheap arc welder?

Any advise welcome??

 

Cheers

 

Mitch

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

Eek, bloody Fiestas!

 

To be honest, for how much grief it will be to sort even with the right kit, I'd pay the £100 and let them do it, and I have got the right kit!

 

You will either really struggle, or fail miserably with an arc welder. And that is no sleight on your ability, I would fail miserably as would pretty much anyone. They are just not up to welding thin rusty bodywork tin with any degree of success. You need a MIG for bodywork to be honest.

[one-lady-owner 1]

A mate of mine has a J reg fiesta and has ended up constructing and welding in his own sills, he's a bit of a strange one though, engineer at work and when he gets home! He's always doing something!

[mitch205gti 1]

Will get it booked in for next week then and sort the other problems over the weekend.

Might be time to get rid of it once its done and look at something not a ford to replace it with.

 

Cheers

 

Mitch

[steve@cornwall 100]

Will get it booked in for next week then and sort the other problems over the weekend.

Might be time to get rid of it once its done and look at something not a ford to replace it with.

 

Cheers

 

Mitch

 

 

Took the words right out of my mouth! What is it with Fords? They seem to be getting worse rust problems when every other manufacturer is moving forward.

[DamirGTI 342]

Strange i haven't seen that amount of rust on Ford cars driving over here , could be difference in production UK vs Germany perhaps ?! as 99% of Ford cars driving in this part of the world are made in Germany … also i've owned a Mk1 Mondeo which was mint , 100% rust free , and made more than 400.000km's with it .. ..

 

Damir

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

It is strange with Fords, as some fare a lot better than others. Our lass also has a Fiesta, 2001 on a Y plate, I've just had to cut out the rear wheelarch and repair it, but the rest of it looks solid enough. Having said that it is on the cards for replacement and having seen that pic above maybe sooner rather than later!

[ALEX 98 1 Cars]

I'd consider the 2K scrappage scheme for that.

 

 

<---- Mine failed on 1 rusty sill, and I was considering scrapping/selling for spares or repair.

 

A patch up will look obvious and I got quoted £150 IIRC for the MOT garage to weld a metal plate over the rust.

To me that's a bodge it's not going to look pretty either, so I looked into replacing the whole sill.

The MOT garage said you'll be expecting to pay £1000 to have it done.

I got a sill anyway for about £50 and cut the old one off and offered up the new one.

A mate whose a mobile motor mechanic came and welded it on for £80.

Then I paid about £120 for it painting.

 

It's covered here if your interested!

 

 

sill topic

[mitch205gti 1]

Well it turns out that her uncle used to be a welder and still has all the stuff so we are taking up this afternoon for him to have a look at it, also new sills are less than £20 so will see what he suggests.

[ALEX 98 1 Cars]

Well it turns out that her uncle used to be a welder and still has all the stuff so we are taking up this afternoon for him to have a look at it, also new sills are less than £20 so will see what he suggests.

 

 

I'd buy the sill anyway for that price as it would save you the hassle of shaping a steel plate.

I used all of my new sill by splitting the spot welds with a wood chisel/angle grinder.

But your uncle might want to cut out the bad and weld in part of the new, which ever is easier/quicker.

Sills on the 205 are held in with spot welds along the top lip under the door seal and bottom lip the standard jack fits to. The rear part of it was fixed to the rear quarter with seam sealer which was the hardest/most time consuming part to remove.

 

If you do it yourself (or get a relative like you have) you can get it sorted for peanuts.

 

Good luck with it.

[GLPoomobile 958]

My old Civic (H reg IIRC) failed on a rusty sill. The place that did it charged me £70 for the one side, using a repair panel, but for that money I didn't get a nice tidy job - as in cutting out the rusty section and welding inthe panel flush - instead they just spt welded the repair panel over the top and sealed it That was about 6 years ago, so I;d say £100 for doing both sides is reasonable. But you can do it cheaper through your uncle then go for it (my uncle did the sills on my Mk2 Astra many years ago, and he just welded some small sheets over each hole. Not a pretty solution but enough to MOT it).

[joe1joe 3]

in my opinion its a fiesta!!! and the rust doesnt go that far up the sill (as in up to the top of the sill) so slap a plate on there and mask it of and spay black underseal all the way along the sill and it will not be visul from the side of the car. replacing the sill means painting etc. if it get you through another year or two then thats good enough???? fietsas are shi.t for rust even ka's are crap.

[mitch205gti 1]

Well he ended up just welding some plates on, so fingers cross it will pass when we take it back in next week.

[willmounsey 1]

Strange i haven't seen that amount of rust on Ford cars driving over here , could be difference in production UK vs Germany perhaps ?! as 99% of Ford cars driving in this part of the world are made in Germany … also i've owned a Mk1 Mondeo which was mint , 100% rust free , and made more than 400.000km's with it .. ..

 

Damir

 

Its funny that because cars over here in SI seem to be alot cleaner than ones that come from the UK, but one thing i've noticed is that they dont gritt the roads as much as they do in the UK in the winter, could this be a factor?

 

Even my festy van (97) is rotting away at the back but my brother brought it over when he moved here from Scotland.

 

Will