Inspirational! I've just finished repairs behind the front cross member. I was hoping for an MOT some time soon, so dare I lift the back seat out? Dare I?

 

RichSP ... Under my back seat was in new factory condition but under the carpet was a different matter.

Well it was one step forward and two back with the first sill repair section.
After welding in place and back lighting the area for pin holes in the weld, i found one on the old sill about 10mm from the weld area so had to cut out more sill to investigate, i missed a bit rust.


Cleaned up area and applied epoxy 121......


Made and welded in a new piece...


After back lighting for pin holes, then on with the epoxy 121 (inside and out)




Next day seam sealed in and out with tiger seal, and after it went off i applied more epoxy 121 over the top.



Next job was to make the sill section that will fit around the jacking point area and coat the inside area with the epoxy 121..
Then weld in place and coat the out side in epoxy 121..






Now on to the last sill section to make and weld in place..

 

+1
But it still scares me

XKR-DAY, you have the patience of Job.

 

The last sill section is now done.....


Then cleaned up and protected with epoxy 121....


Then on to the finishing touches..
Tiger seam sealer to all the in side areas.



Then fitted/replaced the floor sound deadening/acoustic mat..


Now under the carpet (on the right hand side) is rust free...


To complete/finish this side i will seam seal all areas under the car and then be applying epoxy 121 over the top of the seam sealer.
Then Dinitrol ML cavity wax will be sprayed in to the sill and toe board area, then i will spray Dinitrol 3125hs also in to the sill/toe board area.

The area under the car will be sprayed with Dinitrol 3125hs.

The last job will be to cover the outside of the sill area with Gravi tex plus, to try and replicate the factory finish, and then the hard job of trying to spray the MDZ top coat and blending so it doesn't stand out to much.

I think i can call this job on the right side DONE.. (just need to refit the carpet/seat etc)

Unfortunately im not, Iv got the same to do on the left side...........

 

I feel like a total bodger when I look at your fabrication skills!

 

I hear YOU... This is stuff I would like to do and know I need to do but completely lack the skill... Don't know what to do, lol...

 

In my experience, the rust comes from a leaking back window ..fills up with water under the back seat which then slops over when you brake and runs down to the front of the footwell. Since I sealed the back window no damp carpets.

See this post
Re Waxing inside sills and the source of the rust. - Jaguar Forums - Jaguar Enthusiasts Forum

 

Well the left side needs lots of work also...

Cut the bottom of rear tub out (as well as other areas)






Lots of fabrication and welding needed to sort this side also..

 

Well before i can sort out the rear tub and floor area that iv cut out, i need to do this box section area that the A frame bracket bolts up to...
(the area with the big plastic plug)





The big plug area is double layered metal that has lots of rust between them, i opened them up and removed as much rust as i could, then sprayed dinitrol rc 900 between the two layers and closed them back up.
Didnt sleep well that night, so next day i decided to cut it all out..



Today i fabricated some new patches out of 1.2 galvanized sheet,

The first one with the smaller hole


The second one with a bigger hole.


This second one has a lip that the rear tub repair will be spot welded to.

This is the two repair patches off the car showing the plastic plug and how they are laird (rust traps!)




Now iv got access to clean out the surface rust inside the box section and protect with 121 epoxy, then weld in both repair patches, after that i can get the rear tub and floor repaired.
The two repair patches above took me 7 hours to make and fettle, ready for butt welding....
(but I know i will sleep well tonight)

 

I dread to think what my car looks like. I'm ignoring the problem as it's my daily car, I know I shouldn't but that is the reality of my situation. If I can get another car I would be more then willing to spend the money and time to get it done. I like driving it though so I don't like it being off the road.

 

The rear tub and floor area are now done, the box section is also done.

A picture is worth a thousand words (or something like that)

So here we go.......






The above photos are the rear tub area.

Now to the rear floor area.



Above photos are where i had to cut out the round hole that has some sort of metal/plastic disc inserted from factory, the disc and hole area had rotted through..

Now on to the floor area that meets the rear tub.




Now the box section..



After dressing the welds and giving the areas a good clean i applied two coats of epoxy 121 mastic.




Later i will seam seal the areas and cover this with the 121 epoxy.

Next job is the seat belt mounting area.
On the right side i had to cut out part of the seat mounting frame, this time im going to see if i can do it with out cutting the seat frame...

 

Iv managed to repair the seat belt mounting area (with out removing any of the seat frame)

From inside the car i drilled out the spot welds ...



Then from under the car i cut out the floor pan/anchor plate with a dremel and 90" attachment, (making sure i didnt cut to deep)





After cleaning up the area for welding i made a new floor pan section and anchor plate ...



Using the anchor plate and a long bolt to hold the floor section in place for welding (the bolt made a good earthing point for the welder) ...



As usual i used the epoxy 121 and weld through primer under the repair before welding ...



After welding i removed the anchor plate, dressed the weld and gave the area a good clean, then two coats of epoxy 121 inside and out ...




Later it will all get seam sealed and epoxy over the sealer, under the seat frame where i cant seal will get lots of Dinitrol ML then the thicker Dinitrol 3125hs.

Now iv got the front floor pan and transmission tunnel to sort out ...

 

So you're now about 3/4 of the way around. There's a light at the end of the tunnel

Looking forward to seeing the work of art reinstalled!

 

You are doing such a good job of this. I know I need to get mine done and it would be nice if it was done to the same level of quality but I'm not sure if the garages around me are even capable or even willing to put the effort in.

 

Wow! I wish I had the time to even think about doing this. Everytime I go under the car I see a little bit of rust and wonder what lies deeper behind it.

For the time being though I need to try and deal with a largish problem area... and you may be able to offer some insight.

I too am in the UK and underneath my drivers side footwell (outside the car) there is a sort of triangular plate which is starting to rust away. From my research these plates were used in the factory but have no real use post manufacture. The passenger side already appears to have been cut out and replaced.

I am hoping to get by for now with grinding away all the rusty plate and applying some underbody paint, whilst attacking the area with a wire brush drill attachment I removed what appears to be an adhesive patch covering a clean cut 1 inch diameter hole in the floor. No rust around the edge, completely clean steel. Have you come across this hole in your adventure? I have no idea what purpose it serves but I will clearly need to plug it somehow.

not the best pic but you can see the offending area in a pic I took when doing my transmission fluid change

 

Definitely not the worst I've seen by any means, but it may well already have started eating the floor pan. You will certainly do no harm by cutting out the plate and applying something to arrest the rust until you can get to it properly (think seat & carpet out on that side)

I haven't noticed that particular patch, but they are used in a few places. I found one here:
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...6/#post2392817

I *think* they're wax injection points.

 

The factory holes in the floor pan iv came across are all 25mm round holes and were plugged with a plastic/metal disc/grommet, if this is the hole you are referring to you could just fit a rubber grommet to the hole, all the factory plastic/metal grommets iv come across on my car were rotted and removed. Most of the holes had also started to rot so i had to cut them out and weld patches where the hole was, some were ok and i will ether fit a rubber grommet or permanently seal the holes with a metal disc and tiger seal.
Like michaelh iv come across the adhesive patch in various places but never on the floor pan area.
Removing the metal plate is the way to go, but you could find holes in the floor pan under the plate ! (not easy or quick to fix)

For now (until you have more time for a permanent fix) you could clean up the area and cover with fibreglass then black under seal, this is not the way to go but will buy you some time.

Your inner sill looks in good condition so one less thing to worry about.

Unfortunately if you go looking for rust on the UK (and other) XK8/R cars you will find it.

 

Yes michaelh some light at the end of the tunnel ...... but still lots to do.

The transmission tunnel on this side is a lot worse, and i will have to cut out part of the seat base to get it sorted.
Then the front floor pan to sort.... before i go cutting more rot out i need to replace the rear sill and end closure panel.

I to am looking forward to refitting the rear subframe (work of art) ... i think it will be some time before this can be done, as im going to sort out all the rust first.

The light at the end of that tunnel still seams a long way off .

 

I think some have been lucky and found a local garage to do a good job at a reasonable cost for there rust repairs, others like me have decided to DIY the rust repair.

I had a bad experience with my rust repair at a local garage, so after reading threads by RaceDiagnostics, i set off on a very big learning curve.
Still on that learning curve, but getting better.
All this is very time consuming and id hate to think what it would cost in garage man hours (quality and effort cost's unfortunately) ....

 

I had my floorpans cut out and new panels welded in last year because I could feel the carpet from underside the car. Panels where about £90 each and labour was around £400 I think. Worth having done. If you don't do it now it won't be much of a porblem it will just keep eating away until there is a nice big hole like mine.