Body

Repairing a Rusted Panel

This is a few pictures and some words on repairing a rusted out area on your Mini. As I am sure you know, there always seems to be more rust on the car then you thought you'd find. Getting new panels for everything is an expensive proposition, so a small repair here and there, done properly, works well and saves some money. I've just replaced the floorpan on this project, and now there are gaps from the front of the floor, to the fenderwells, where there used to be metal. See below....

You can see the repair panel I fabricated sitting on the top of the floor (The car is upside down so although it is the top in the picture, this is the underside of the floor.) I have already cut away the rusted areas, and then cut back further to make sure I was into good metal. I chose to butt weld here, but you can also overlap or use a air/hydraulic step tool to have a nice seam on one side, with an overlap on the other side..

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Here is the panel fitted to the car to check before final clamping and welding. The panel was fabricated from 18 guage rolled steel. A cardboard template was made, the shape cut out of the metal using air shears, and then folded to match the shape of the edge of the floor. Bending was done using a homemade metal bender, made with angle iron and hinges. It doesn't do too bad a job and the price was right!
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