The upper wheel well hole of doom....a multiple joint connection failure.


Note the carpeting, also note my previous vertical repair protruding thru for welding reasons....Not willing to gut the rear & pull carpet, I did the following......


EEEEEEK!!



The patch, 14ga cut to fit, rolled to wheel well radius. On the inner well area where the carpet remains, I'm securing with 3/16" steel rivets..



Looks like I didn't photograph the install, I will say it came out really well, combination of welding & rivets I think it's pretty dang strong. Seam sealed it and painted with bedliner.

 

Whoops, found them......


Repair in place, the 4 joints once again secured.


Little fuzzzzy......but so was I.



Now buttoned up, I bed lined inside & out....

 

To finish off the wheel well, I had to deal with the forward wheel well body support............


So....I guess an engineer thought.......thought it would be 'ok' to create a body mount off a single pcs of 20 gage steel on the back side of the rocker boxes with no other gusseting..........His/Her boss must of saw this and said 'this won't work, you need to weld it to the 18ga wheel well metal....this will act as a support'............and so it was done.


Genius..........



Basically, another failure created with inferior materials while also creating a mud/water/salt trap.....with material of too less a grade, body movement while traveling & a garbage trap.....you get-



Once the offensive material is removed, as well as the mud caked in there, you see how this was assembled....not very impressive, you may even note the mount is no longer square either, and with the gusset rotted off,
so cleaned up you'll have.....



Unfortunately, unless your willing to replace the rocker box, which I don't have time for right now.......your stuck repeating the offence as a structural repair......Only thing I did different was use heavier material.


Regusseted & welded, 3/16" steel...(but still welded to crap rocker steel...UGH!)



The 14ga repair, holes are for plug welding, again for additional strength vs just welding around edge. I'm also again forced to weld it to the body mount, plug welds here as well.










Seam sealed and covered in wet bed liner.....a day later I bed lined the entire wheel well.



Total time invested on repair......about 7 hours..


2 days of cure time, the finished repair from the out side....



Monday was a 15 1/2 hour day for me, this was all done after hours....and I work 10-11 hour days.......ugh, I need a break!!

 

finished off nicley

 

Thank you, pretty happy with it myself.
The other side is much worse, we'll see how that goes.........not looking forward to it.

 

Repairs look great, that's just more time than I want to spend on that mess lol, pull the rear cargo carpet and look at that mess

 

Detoured Discovey,

You must be a glutton for it or into S&M and a damn good fabricator/welder.

This is an excellent tutorial/warning for those that may want to purchase a used LR and what could be encountered rust wise.

For those looking there are good/bad/ugly ones folks are selling and it's likely prudent to search/wait/pay for a good one sans the rust issues to invest your time into.

Jest my two cents.

......

 

Tom, I'm actually ok under the cargo carpet!!


Number9.......You caught me, I've been a paid fabricator for 32 years, I'm in the business...not the rust business, but in the business. I knew this thing had rust when bought, I'll admit I underestimated it......Now that I'm messing with it, you get an understanding of why it rusted, over sights and mis-engineering....It's mind blowing how I've learned to laugh at this thing.
Your 2 cents are welcome any time!

 

Well.........Stretched the gal's leg's this afternoon........


I gotta say, she must really like the attention given to her over the last week.........Didn't play any games with me all afternoon, very responsive, purred like a kitten and she's sipping less ethyl it seems. With one less bad body mount, or should we say 1 good body mount.....she already has a different feel cornering......flew down a dirt road and noticeably less dust in the cab already.......Kinda looking forward to moving on.


I'm thinking the former collapsed exhaust was a huge downer for her, yet to remove caddy-let-ick perverters......but already improved, gas gauge is proof of that I think. Looking up!

 

Even fat bottom girls need a little attention or else they get a little funky..........