15-04-2019, 05:47 PM
Dave, I had very much the same problem with loads of aluminium sheeting, rivets and filler as you can see hopefully on the attached pictures.
There is a structural member that runs right up through the door post and on my Ruby this was rotted through as was the floor pan, outer body work and inner sections. You may find that you will need to remove more metal to take it back to something more solid and this may mean removing more of the outer skin to gain access to the inner door post.
However before cutting anything away I fitted a steel frame inside Ruby made from angle Dexion top to bottom and criss-cross to stop any movement of the body when you end up removing so much material. This may have been over the to but I did not want to risk the body shifting.
To be honest I made all my own sections with very limited tooling, it is amazing what you can conjure up with a little imagination.
I used a small portable MIG welder to weld all my sections back in place, I was never able to perfect the art of continuously welding as this gave far too much distortion on the thin metal and so adopted a spot welding technique, one small weld every two inches or so and then going back in between the welds again and again until eventually the sections were fully welded.....and lots of fettling and angle grinding.
The last pic shows the door post finished welded but further fettling need and skimming with filler but I the original door post finished above the running board, but I took mine down below.
If you can get the chance to see someone else's Ruby, as has been offered in earlier posts, grab it with both hands.
Good luck.
Denis S
There is a structural member that runs right up through the door post and on my Ruby this was rotted through as was the floor pan, outer body work and inner sections. You may find that you will need to remove more metal to take it back to something more solid and this may mean removing more of the outer skin to gain access to the inner door post.
However before cutting anything away I fitted a steel frame inside Ruby made from angle Dexion top to bottom and criss-cross to stop any movement of the body when you end up removing so much material. This may have been over the to but I did not want to risk the body shifting.
To be honest I made all my own sections with very limited tooling, it is amazing what you can conjure up with a little imagination.
I used a small portable MIG welder to weld all my sections back in place, I was never able to perfect the art of continuously welding as this gave far too much distortion on the thin metal and so adopted a spot welding technique, one small weld every two inches or so and then going back in between the welds again and again until eventually the sections were fully welded.....and lots of fettling and angle grinding.
The last pic shows the door post finished welded but further fettling need and skimming with filler but I the original door post finished above the running board, but I took mine down below.
If you can get the chance to see someone else's Ruby, as has been offered in earlier posts, grab it with both hands.
Good luck.
Denis S