1961 BMW 502 V8

Wes

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While waiting to get the CSL back to the body shop I've made a soft start on the 502 despite telling myself I wouldn't. That said all I'm sinking into it is around 4hrs on a Sat morning. The outer sills double as chassis rails on these cars and are usually totally rusted out, as is the case here. After pulling off panels and doors to gain access I've made a start on replacing the right hand sill.

This is what I was faced with after pulling the doors - and this is the good side..
@Markos may appreciate I had to use a spade to clean out around 4 inches of god only knows what that was sitting on the floor.

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There's a complex piece of sheet metal that sits on top of the sill that doubles as the running board. I might be able to salvage them or at worst use as a template.
After pulling them off it revealed the sill between the A & B pillar was totally gone. The rust had also eaten away a good deal of the 100mm steal tubes that run across the car.

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Funnily enough the actual floors aren't too bad. As you can see I had to unpick the remains of the sill and cut away the rotten tubing to find some good metal to be able to weld to.

The local sheet metal shop has managed to fabricate me some replacement sill sections that I can weld in. Have also sleeved the tubing with new steel to. provide some reinforcing.

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You can see here where the spot welds to hold the floor have come through. I plan to also run a piece of box section between the two pieces of tube below the A & B pillars to give some extra strength. I'll also run that on through the remainder of the sill to the back of the car.
To get the inner sill to this point would have been around 10 hours work. I plan to put in some more temporary struts next week ahead of opening up the rest of the same sill.
The car will then be moving to my house as they are selling the workshop where it's stored.
 
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