Thread: Defender: Seat and Battery Box Repair / Insulation

Great; looking forward to any insight I can pick up here. I have to attempt to repair a rusty battery enclosure soon and figured I might as well go the whole hog. How were YRM to deal with?

I ordered the bits from the YRM website, order was processed quickly and received in the post within a week.

The panels arrived in perfect condition.

Heres the battery box:


Not much of a puzzle, but YRM added some numbers just in case!


Heres a replacement seat box end alongside a rotter:



I got hold of some 1mm thick butyl tape and some closed cell foam tape.


The seatbox and battery box panels will be joined with sikaflex, because if done right I should not need to replace these panels ever again. Where the seatbox mounts to its surroundings it will be sealed/isolated with butyl tape, which is much easier to separate than sikaflex should I need to remove the entire seatbox area in future. The foam tape will be used for the removable access panels on top of the seatbox.

I've decided its best to leave the seatbox in whilst replacing the panels so I can be sure it all lines up.

Getting the ends off
Unbolt three bolts along the sill and two up the pillar.



If you are unfortunate enough to have this vinyl fabric crap stuck on with industrial strength contact adhesive, you will need to go at it with a razor and a dust mask. Pulling at the vinyl exposed a nasty dust filled fibrous matting.



Once clear, drill out the spot welds with a 5mm drill bit.

Along the top (two rivets amongst the welds):



Along the front edge:



With all the required spot welds drilled out the panel will still grip. On the interior joins there may be some mastic and also the edges of the spot welds can cling on. I used a small chisel to get between the joins, loosen up the mastic and pop the spot welds. A few belts with a rubber mallet helped.

Before I started this thread I had already removed the passenger side seatbox end. I'll put up some more pics of the drivers side panel removal when I get to it.

First up - passenger side with battery box:

Getting the battery box out.

Drill out top rivets


Drill out rivets along the front of the seatbox


With all the rivets out the box is loose but has no way out, stuck ontop of the chassis rail, held in by the sill. Gotta remove the sill

Remove the two bolts holding the floor plate to the sill:


To remove the sill I had to also remove my sidestep/rockslider.

Two bolts holding the rear of the sill to the pillar:


Two nuts holding on the front of the sill to the bulkhead:
The sill has already been removed, nuts put back on for safe keeping.

Unfortunately with the sill removed the battery box did not kindly fall to the floor. I had to wrestle, jiggle and pry it out.








Old and new



A couple of rivets put in for a test fit, just to make sure the new box will go in without any issues:


Looks to line up nicely. Time to prep the box.

Started by fitting the tranny side panel to the base panel. Bead of silkaflex 'auto+'.



Rivets in place



Riveted


Repeated with the other two side pieces, slotting them under and behind. Tip: Get all the rivets in their holes before popping any of them. You might need to use a clamp to get some of your rivets in.



Its a battery box:


Up next, a coat of septone body deadener! Riveting stuff

Seam sealed the inside of the box:



Painted the outside of the box with septone body deadener. Not particularly nice stuff to work with. Was worried it would stay gooey but dried off to a chalk like finish. Not that tough or that good at deadening the panel - may have to give it another few coats:



Getting the box into position with g-clamp and a couple of vice grips:



I missed a few shots, the next photo was taken after drilling holes in the lip of the battery box to line up with the mounting holes in the sill. This was done by drilling from underneath the sill. I could then line up the pre-drilled holes in the replacement side panel with the holes in the sill and put in the bolts to hold it in position. At this point it was clear that there would be no issues fixing the battery box in its current position so I put a few rivets in to hold the inner and front edge of the battery box in place and free up some clamps.


The pillar bolts were done up tight whilst the sill bolts were loose, to lock the panel tight up against the pillar. This helped me to bring the front edge of the seatbox back in against the side panel. The lip/tab needed to be knocked back around the panel. I did not need to bash it tight up against the panel, just close enough to drill the holes - the rivets pull it in tight. Hammer and a block of wood helped get the tab around and flat.

Top plate used to keep alignment in check. Drilled and riveted my way up the front edge bringing the two panels together. Once all rivets in place the tab was knocked flush:


Phone/camera dies around this point. The panels are sitting pretty without clamps so was just a case of going around all the edges drilling and riveting for the win.

The battery box is marginally bigger than the original, but the space can be used a lot better because the tranny side panel is flat, where as the original had some kind of space invading sculpture. Also the lowest point on the base is flat right up to the outer side panel - the original was angled up towards the outer side panel. This means a N70 size battery is easier to get in and sits flat along the bottom with more headroom.