Outer sill replacement

[John A. Ross]

Not amongst the most difficult jobs on the imp however it does take a fair bit of time and patience, The attacment at the A and B pillar particularly as these seem to be well attached with spot welds and a 3 layer sandwich to boot !

Care on removing the old sill will go a huge way to having the area well prepped and reaady for the new panel.

Now despite using the best fit panels from the start (Ex-pressed steel panels) they will still need to be made to fit the car as the cars never were a great fit panel wise to begin with !

In the case of the passenger side I fit in the videos below, I made a small error of a few mm on the seam from floor to middle sill, easy enough to fix but that line foirced the panel when fitted to drop 5mm or so door gap wise towards the front

Just need to get it welded in now after a bit more fettling

[John A. Ross]

https://www.steelpanels.co.uk/products/sunbeam-2/imp-sport-stiletto/rh-full-sill-imp1/

[John A. Ross]

Do not expect the panel to fit perfectly, they never were that good even from the factory ! you could spend forever making something better than it was.

The extra hour it took me to fettle, trim and generally beat into submission the sill sits well, came out very well in the end.

The extra work is far better being expended now.

While waiting for the coatings to flash off I took back the paint where the lower half wing will attach and got a nasty surprise, not what I wanted, actually pitted ! well something else to fix, add it to the list !

Time to recruit some help with the heavy work and get it acttached, I can work on the other side until then

[John A. Ross]

That is the sill on. More details when the video is done.

I relased the supports and tolted the shell over so the finished sill was at the bottom, it is always good to get some epoxy in there, first a wet coat to seep into the seam, then a biut thicker and let it pool into the crevices

Makes for a very nice seal indeed.




As the epoxy is really expensive and I already made up more than I needed (why is it always like that ! ) I prepped the tunnel and one footwell, cleaned off with soem acid, dried and then used the left over mix thineed down to add a first sealing coat for the metal




Now a lot of folks get obsessed with spray application, I will be spray applyinga coating but for this first seal no issue to brush it in, I always find brushing helps get it into every pit and seam.


Drivers side next up and then I can get the floor coated up to the edges, the wheel tubs have cleaned up very nicely as you can see

[John A. Ross]

OK, another crappy day full of bad news wherever you look and it just keeps coming.

Anyone else be glad to see the back of 2023 ?

The other sill on the car was no different, glad I filmed the other side as this one was a complete bar steward, right down to the slightly differnt lip size on the panel itself.

So I had to take a few measurements from the other car to compare as I was not expecting this.





Same issues as other side as regards position of the new sills against the length of the A and B pillar returns so a quick trim was in order






All trimmed up and nowhere to go.

Eventually after a lot of grinding and fettling the sod is in and like the other side I filled the back of the sill seam with epoxy and tilted over the car so it will flow/gel any excess into the seam at lowest point of sill/floor joint and thats far better than any seam sealer will ever do,

Before sealing up the sil ends I will also do the same using a syringe and some tubing, basically I will drag the tube along the seam inside the sill and fill the void which will have exposed metal and leave it to set, any condensation wont sit on top of anything left exposed as even the zin primer will burn off a bit when welded.

Once both sides are done I will do the same to the inner seam from inside the car.between the inner box section and the floor, the space is very minimal but while I can turn the car over I may as well.

John