Phil's 82 Range Rover Classic

The doors on my RRC do not close properly as when they are about 100 mm from closed you have to push them against some resistance.
On further investigation I noticed that the top hinge has plenty of clearance when closed!
Attachment 186179
However the bottom hinge has bound up on itself and also has huge packing between the hinge and the door.
Attachment 186180
It turns out that the bottom hinge has the check strap and when passengers open the door and allow it to swing open the full amount of the check strap, the weight/inertia of the door tries to pull the hinge off the A pillar.
Consequently, the inner of the three bolts has pulled the sleeve of the bolt mount “through” the pillar and distorted it to the point where the pillar has cracked around the bolt sleeve.
Attachment 186181
Now, as I have some rust repair work to do on the bodyside and the A pillar, I can persuade it back into position and all will be well in the world. Except that it could develop again in the future as it will still only be as Rover designed it.
I am contemplating cutting a piece out of the face of the pillar and then welding a strip to the top of the bolt sleeve and attaching the other edge to the inner face of the pillar so that the sleeve can no longer be “pulled” out of position by the check strap.

Has anyone else done anything to prevent the above phenomenon as it can’t be just my RRC that this has happened to.

Phil

The hinges also sag over time, which is probably what the bushing is trying to correct on the bottom hinges.

Unfortunately, the likelihood of you finding rust in the pillar is high -

If you are going to attempt to plate the inside of the pillar with some flat bar, then there is a way to do it by opening up the bottom of the pillar, but you're in for rather major surgery if you elect to do so. If you are willing to undertake it, then your best bet is to do ALL the doors, because they all suffer the same problem.

The way I did it, was open up the pillar at the bottom with cutting disc to gain access. remove door, spray phos acid up the pillar until it runs clean then inspect with fibre optic camera. (you're going to need one, so buy one) Then used a ball hone on a drill to remove rust. Not easy. Compressed air and more phos acid and wait 24hrs.

Cut some 6mm thick flat bar to the correct length and slide it up inside. If you haven't removed the threads, grind off and drill out. use magnets to hold in place, scribe the door holes, remove and drill. Refit and check all holes are im place. Make sure they match (alignment).

Drill out the pillar holes to clear the thread and rivnut/sleeve thing. Inspect the inside of the pillar for burrs and remove any.
Refit the flat bar. check hole alignment (important!) Once everything is aligned, remove the flat and tack weld on some flange nuts to the flat bar. This is to ensure there is sufficient thread engagement of the metalthreads and the tightening torque can be maximised.

At this point, you have a pillar with six holes for bolts in it, a piece of flat bar with nuts welded onto it in the corresponding locations and a need to affix it into the pillar permanently.

Suggestion is to drill several holes in the pillar, to enable you to weld the flat bar to the pillar. How many is up to you, but I would suggest at minimum, every 50mm vertically on each side of the pillar. Use a magnet to secure the flat bar in place, AND the metalthreads to pull the flat bar hard up against the pillar, then commence tack welding each hole and then weld them out as per standard distortion-reduction methods.

So that will reinforce the pillar, as well as assist in correctly locating the door. You still have to prevent any future corrosion at this point before you seal up the bottom of the pillar. Suggest using an epoxy primer and or fishoilene or lanotec steel seal etc. i.e. a rust-preventative product of your choice.

Then you can seal up the bottom of the pillars with appropriate welding etc. and refinish the pillars (theyre all going to need a respray anyway) and you're done.

I'm not going to tell you it takes 5 minutes - no it takes a solid 2-3 days to do, with all the tools and the trim and doors removed etc. So maybe a week and a half all up if you're careful and methodical.

There's no quick fix for the sagging door. It's inevitable that you WILL find more rust than you bargained for.

This is the point where I myself should have downed tools and decided to go with a full frame-off rust repair and resto on mine. In hindsight, my decision was not the best, but I did not have time on my side and made the best of the time I had to complete the task.

You're more than likely going to find rust in your doors as well. Fix it before it gets worse. Doors are getting hard to find - and GOOD doors are even harder to find.

Best of luck with it. Not much fun, but it is satisfying to remediate the problem nonetheless.

Thanks Mercguy.
There is rust in the bottom of the pillar so I was going to have to rebuild it anyway.
But not just the bottom!
Attachment 186199
Oh, and I removed this this afternoon as well. Windscreen top rail.
Attachment 186200 Attachment 186201
The previous owner did say “it had rust in the front floors and I have repaired it but it might not be to your satisfaction”.
It isn’t, simply spreading bog over rust and painting it black is not a repair.
While I expected to do rust repairs (I’ve owned a classic before) the main reason for buying this one was because it was complete and therefore I don’t need to search for any special parts.
Oh well, it’s only sheet steel and some welding [bighmmm]

Phil

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Phil 850

Thanks Mercguy.
There is rust in the bottom of the pillar so I was going to have to rebuild it anyway.
But not just the bottom!
Attachment 186199
Oh, and I removed this this afternoon as well. Windscreen top rail.
Attachment 186200 Attachment 186201
The previous owner did say “it had rust in the front floors and I have repaired it but it might not be to your satisfaction”.
It isn’t, simply spreading bog over rust and painting it black is not a repair.
While I expected to do rust repairs (I’ve owned a classic before) the main reason for buying this one was because it was complete and therefore I don’t need to search for any special parts.
Oh well, it’s only sheet steel and some welding [bighmmm]

Phil

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Oh bugger. you have the pillar rust as well. My condolences.

For some odd reason the 41 year old bottom seal that gets bent through 90 deg every time the tailgate is opened has cracked [happycry]
Who would have thought 💭
I bought a strip of 25 mm wide rubber from Clark and cut the same amount off the edge of the seal and bonded it on.
Attachment 186268 Attachment 186269
I’ll see how it goes when reinstalled.

Phil

As noted previously, the windscreen header panel had significant corrosion and must have leaked quite badly.
I cut the rusted sections out and welded in some new steel sheet with a small fold along the edge just like the original shape.
Attachment 186445
I then fully welded these in place, ensuring plenty of time to allow it to cool between welds to minimise distortion.
I have it screwed down to wooden blocks on a sheet of 30 mm plywood to hold it stable. Also helps when dressing off the welds.
Attachment 186446
Reinstalled it on the RRC and it is a perfect fit [bigsmile1]
Just need to take it back off for priming and painting.
Attachment 186447

Phil

Nice work! That pillar would have worried me in the past.... but after watching fitzees fabrications on youtube, I feel confident to have a go at most stuff these days :)

seeya
Shane L.

I trimmed around the rust in the corner of the windscreen ready for repair.
Attachment 186502
I also have some rust in the bottom of the pillar so I removed the door so that I could investigate further.
It has had a replacement of the bottom section done in the past. I don’t know if it was a new section or a second hand one, but the replacement is terrible, even approaching dangerous [bigsad]

This is below the upper hinge where the pillar has rusted but the replacement piece was too short so they just didn’t bother to connect them.
Attachment 186503
The welding where they did connect is not to my expectations either.
Attachment 186504 Attachment 186505

There is significant rust in the bottom of the pillar that either wasn’t cut out of the replacement pillar but some of it had been “sort of” repaired.
Attachment 186506

The inside of the pillar is also rusted and they didn’t bother to fix it to attach it to the sill [bawl]
Attachment 186507

While I can buy a replacement bottom section from FamousFour, it is about $400 plus shipping. Then I still need to fix the issues when attaching it below the top hinge so I thought I might as well repair/rebuild what I have there at the moment [bighmmm] unless someone has a pillar in good condition that I can procure economically.
On the positive side, the drivers side pillar all looks OK, and the B/C pillars are also OK.
The front floors need attention from the angle grinder and welder, but I already knew about that.
Are the pillars and floors made from 1.0 mm steel as that is what I think they are.
I’ll need to buy some and a roll of MIG wire as well [bighmmm]

The adventure continues !

Phil

To investigate further the issues with the passengers A pillar I needed to remove the front wing bracket and the seal support angle.
Attachment 186533
I centre punched the centre of each of the spot welds and then with this tool, drilled through the angle.
Attachment 186534 Attachment 186535
I was surprised how easily it drilled through the angle. I did use a liberal amount of cutting fluid on the bit which I have found greatly increases the life of drill bits.
This is the end result.
Attachment 186536

I can thoroughly recommend this tool.

Phil