Thread: Phil's 82 Range Rover Classic

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!
98FCD8AB-FE1E-4319-BFA3-8FBC5EF4F468.jpg
Oh, and I removed this this afternoon as well. Windscreen top rail.
208931B3-A0D4-424A-9561-3B6D3FBCD3FB.jpg 933FD588-12CF-4B1A-A631-F964AE78B557.jpg
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

Phil

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!
98FCD8AB-FE1E-4319-BFA3-8FBC5EF4F468.jpg
Oh, and I removed this this afternoon as well. Windscreen top rail.
208931B3-A0D4-424A-9561-3B6D3FBCD3FB.jpg 933FD588-12CF-4B1A-A631-F964AE78B557.jpg
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

Phil

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
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.
BC602D83-FE91-405A-91CD-9560D502555E.jpg 92EB00E8-1E2D-4189-BDD7-232896082693.jpg
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.
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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.
401AAA64-8713-402A-B76A-0795E528075B.jpg
Reinstalled it on the RRC and it is a perfect fit
Just need to take it back off for priming and painting.
11F20507-E473-4B30-9E5D-B82DBEE25BD5.jpg

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.
6D77E208-C249-4E91-8939-40585FFA0077.jpg
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

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.
70CC515E-E853-41A9-BF0B-845E4C06933D.jpg
The welding where they did connect is not to my expectations either.
844270AC-571A-4099-AF9F-9C13B6666F66.jpg FC28FFC0-BDD9-47A8-B947-88D4A864C78B.jpg

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.
A115A6A7-E81E-4E9A-8F5B-784C1A6F895A.jpg

The inside of the pillar is also rusted and they didn’t bother to fix it to attach it to the sill
439A5593-ABF2-4DD3-AF51-EBB45A7002C2.jpg

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 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

The adventure continues !

Phil