Keeping the tin worm at bay.

This is how we tackled a hole in the wheel arch of our trusty Hijet...
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Cut out the rot with angle grinder.
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New metal inside.
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New metal outside.
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New 2cm lip.
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Brush on some old Diamond White paint found in depths of garage.
Not a pretty result, but a functional one, this is now the strongest metal on the van.
My mate who did the welding wanted to grind & fill it all smooth, but I prefer the battle scarred look.
I plan to wire brush it back to metal & paint with smooth Hammerite once the weather is fit.

Hopefully this will help towards this years MOT.

Nice work looks good I do my own welding like a lot of others on this forum and last year discovered leading (or body soldering) having always used (plastic) filler which has a habit of bouncing out of panels like doors but lead is what used to be used all the time Frost sell a kit http://www.frost.co.uk/item_Detail.asp?productID=8789&frostProductName=Standard%20Solder%20Kit&catID=29&frostCat=Fillers&frostSubCat=&subCatID= but you can use Plumbing solder and also bonds to the metal and unlike filler its water proof I used it to fix my motorbike tank as well.

so not a RoHs (un-leaded components) friendly mod.. lol

leopard_pagan wrote:so not a RoHs (un-leaded components) friendly mod.. lol

I don't even know what RoHs means but as I see it I could cover the whole car in lead and run it on full choke for the restr of my life and not do as much damage to the enviroment as one Prius By the way does your MPV have central locking? I found a fuse today (when I was fitting a new head unit) that was blown and when I changed it the left hand side of the central locking started to work drivers door don't have any wiring but the drivers side sliding door don't operate was just about to scan through the wiring diagram incase there is anouther fuse for the other side.

rich the mechanic wrote:Nice work looks good I do my own welding like a lot of others on this forum and last year discovered leading (or body soldering) having always used (plastic) filler which has a habit of bouncing out of panels like doors but lead is what used to be used all the time.

Hence the term lead sled...
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What about a soldering iron & electrical solder?
Only for small repairs.
Would that work?

No is the answer you need to get the work area fairly hot and the soldering iron wont do that as for the solder yes if its flux-less plumbing solder is about a 1/8" the real hard bit is tinning the metal you can buy flux which is self tinning, frosts sell it and some car body repair places also do stock it. check out this page on frost for a lesson they used to have a vid but I cant find it http://www.frost.co.uk/how_do_i_explained.asp?hdID=16

Here's one for LP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX5YjrsD_Pg you can get a lead free kit

lol.. the industry i work in (electronics) are big in to this RoHs crap. the Americans decided 4yrs ago that all lead content was bad for the environment and a world wide ban on lead products came about. However in the real world.. unleaded products simply cant do the job, its unreliable, a headache to solder with and no one had even researched in to it before they forced the change!
and the most dumbest thing.. the guy who figured this out retracted his findings and said it was wrong, but it was too late! the USA do not use lead free solders! in the UK/EU only medical or military are allowed to use leaded solders.

i use lead solder on my bike as its so old + i want things to work!

No central locking on my olde van..

I'm glad this came up coz I was toying with trying a lead free solder for my bodywork but I think I'll stick to what I know I did have to buy some lead free electrical solder coz I had run out and maplins don't give you an option but for the little I do I'm sure it will do the last lot I had was a small winding and that lasted about four years if not longer.