Repairing the chassis hole

A hole hiding underneath an outrigger!

After discovering a large hole in the chassis below the outrigger I set about repairing, I set of on a chassis repair detour.

The chassis was ground back to the good metal around the rotted out hole, cut square and a patch fabricated, then butt welded in.

I've decided to stay as close to all of the original geometry as possible rather than bulk everywhere out with layers of metal. In this situation the chassis needed to be as original as possible because the outrigger will sit on top of it!

Butt welded patched and ground flat.

Primed and ready.

Removing inner sill and rear outriggers

The inner sill was a previous repair and had been spot welded from below in several places as well as the spot welds from inside the cargo bay.

The I beams and rear top hat section I decided to cut away close to where it joined the inner sill, I figured it would be easier to extend these later to meet the new inner sill rather than try and cut around the seam welded ends.

After removing the front outrigger to find a large hole in the chassis, I thought it would be worth replacing the rear outriggers just to make sure the chassis was solid underneath. And even though both outriggers seemed only to be rotten at the vehicle’s edge while I was here it made sense to make a complete job and know that there was nothing lurking underneath.

As it turned out the chassis was fine. 
But it’ll be good to rust treat it and paint it out.