Hello all

I'm trying to figure out the best way to remove the sills on a series 1 cleanly, and equally importantly how to put fresh sills on after cleaning up behind them.

I have a parts series 1 I've been experimenting on which has one perfect sill and one pretty good one on it, I was optimistically trying to get the sills off so I might be able to reuse them on my XJC project, which has one perfect sill and one dented up one.

So far I've done a pretty horrible job but didn't mind sacrificing the sill you see butchered in the pictures here in order to learn.






Apart from briefly setting fire to the remains of the back seat here's what I did:

- Drilled out the bottom spot welds, some with a spot weld cutter the rest with a drill bit
- used a cutoff wheel to cut near the door rubber line and around the centre post
- cut around both end caps in the wheel arch

My pre plan was to tidy up the sill once it was off and maybe reuse.

What actually has happened so far is a lot of cutting, but a sill that's still firmly on the car, probably held on mostly by the bottom spot welds which need more drilling out.

I have no problem sacrificing this car which will shortly be headed to the crusher, but I won't be hacking up the XJC like this, and the 'reuse the series 1 sill' idea seems a bit optimistic at this point.

Plan b was to use the wolfe sills and end caps from Canada, but that doesn't solve how to get the sills off the XJC cleanly to tidy up underneath and sort the drainage out.

I could have drilled out the upper spot welds except around the centre door post, decided to cut to see how that would go. Presumably on the coupe this is the way to go - drill out all visible spot welds and pull? Thanks for any input!

 

FIRST have a good look round your xjc and see how far the rot or damage goes and cut panels accordingly. Pay attention to the usual rust spots, the front footwells,, front and rear jacking points, boot floor, rear panel/s, fuel tank panels outer and inner,
Where possible take these out by drilling out the spot welds or cutting into the panels around. If the floor pans are good then they are worth rescuing as well. They are actually the same size as the xjc. Even if you don't need the panels now someone else may want them. They will be a guaranteed better fit then aftermarket panels!

The full sills seem to be a bit of a bargain (£350 - 500 here!!) so may well be worth buying as it will save you a lot of hassle. I can't see the shape at the rear top of the panels as for the xjc there is a sort of trough (inadequate with inadequate drain!) on top

You can take the other sill off by drilling out ALL the spot welds, bottom top and ends. The top joint is along the upright seams. The top all the way along to in front of the A pillar is part of the sill.
At the A pillar cut above the sill by an inch or two just under the hinge, you can either prise the section of the pillar off or cut it off to access the spot welds on the seam behind (or you could cut your xjc pillar to match and weld there).
Ditto B pillar.
At the c pillar cut an inch or two above and round to the wheel arch, you can drill off this bit but keep it just in case as it's a tricky shape

The coupe is a bit more complicated as the seam is inside the car under/ beside the back seat running to the rear wheel arch. The trough under the rear window is part of the outer sill. and is spot welder to the rear wing on the outer seam.

BTW You need to check with the supplier that this 'trough' is included.
In fact the more I look at it the more of a bargain that sill, if complete looks.

 

Thanks for this! I called Alfa this morning - they had anXJC they took apart and matched the panels off so I think they will be a good fit, famous last words. Shipping wasn't too bad to here and they are the entire unit. Seeing one clean and off the car makes it a lot easier to remove the old one so given xjc value I'll probably spring for a couple of these and the end caps.



I'll drill out all the top welds on the s1 xj6 sill to experiment anyway despite having already cut it.

That parts car has the floor completely rotted out but sills, beaver panel etc are rust free and fairly straight. Interior was shot from water getting in. I've got a lot of good panels off it, yet another irs etc etc.

The xjc is a california car so very little rust but it's had an off road excursion that took out both front wings, one sill and the floors are very clean but slightly pushed up, will try to straighten. It had a forklift through the door and rear quarter at the wrecking yard I rescued it from. I used the rear door skin of the parts s1 to patch the rear quarter and I got a fresh xjc door, so slowly coming together. Also got front bumper and grille in UK and a Robey front under panel. Just doing all the bracing and known rust/leak issues while it's on its wheels with engine in to keep it intact and straight before stripping it.

I'm going to keep experimenting on the xj6 carcass to learn how best to dissect. Cheers

 

I did the same!
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...d-work-121475/

Still should have rescued more sections and panels, cut at the right places to make them more useable.
Also should have taken more pics of what the solid jag looked like!

That panel in your pic shows one end which is OK but the other end AFAIK has a trough built into it to drain the water from the window seals. The poor design of that trough and the small tube is probably the cause of lots of rusty sills etc.
If you squint you can just make out the shape in the diagram https://www.angloparts.com/en/catalo...y-parts?page=3 just don't look at the price!! I think we are being ripped off here!!
I did find a better pic somewhere maybe someone else on here's got one. On my XJC the whole area was butchered and plate after plate were tacked on top of each other, I'm currently redesigning that area, amongst many, so I can improve the rust resistance. I will most likely be making the trough out of stainless steel, deeper with a bigger drain.

Might be worth taking measurements/ pics of the underside of your series 1 to check your alignment, sounds like XJC suffered some damage that may have affected the structure.