Plus 2 Sill Replacement

[Peter +2]

I about to replace the sills on my Plus and to set about removing the old ones from the rear. I spotted a thread that said they can be removed from the front so long as the front suspension is stripped which mine is.

Can any one confrm whether front removal is possible and whether it is any easier or more difficult than removing / replacing them from the rear?

Many thanks

Peter

[Jason1]

Hi

Have a look at:

elan-plus-f13/new-sill-place-t13350.html

and

elan-plus-f13/plus-side-sill-member-t18187.html

Some nice pics.

Jason

[Peter +2]

Jason,

Thanks for your help, I started to prepare to remove the driver-side sill this afternoon and so far I have stripped the interior of seats and carpets and to drill out the machine screws which run along the bottom of the sill. I had forgotten what a messy job this is having done this once before about twenty years ago on my 1st +2 FRU 124L. As there has been little response to my dilemma as to whether it is possible to remove / refit the sill through the front arch. I will attack the problem by going through the rear arches as this seems to be the most common way to carry out the sill replacement and therefore probably the best.

Cheers

Peter

[mikealdren]

Peter,
I used stainless screws when I refitted mine. Metric are cheaper and more readily available so I used 6mm with penny washers. My car is going Zetec so originality is not important and I used hex head screws rather than slotted heads.

Mike

[theelanman]

Peter
didnt reply as you were asking about replacing from the front.....
when I did mine I did as most have probably done and done it from the rear......
its time consuming...mostly the getting rid of the old stuff......but the new stuff drops in fairly easily.......
cheers
G

[theelanman]

oh yes....and I also used stainless bolts.......
however when I painted it used the black anti stonechip stuff along the sills vertical edge

[JJDraper]

I endorse the stainless option, but went for Pan head screws ( google Namrick), and penny washers. Each washers had a chunk sliced off to fit - see pic. Watch out for the paint finish. It is proving difficult to get anything to stick to the screw heads and washers, which should have been etch primed before hand (My fault!). I am currently using black Hammerite, which seems to be staying put a bit longer.

Jeremy

[Peter +2]

Thanks, guys. Penny washers + stainless steel fasteners is a good idea. I spent most of yestarday preparing for the sill replacement with the removal of the interior and trim. Now for the really messy bit......

Peter

[bob_rich]

Hi

Only just seen your post. I did my sill members through from the front. removed the front coil spring damper then jacked the suspension up high. With all bolts removed and the kids as helpers to hold the sill out a bit ( about 1/2") the old one slid out and the new one slid in from the front with no problems and did cleared the front wing and body work with no problems.

Hope this helps best of luck

Bob

[theelanman]

step by step pics would be good...

I know its in the workshop manual but an update and experience thing is also good....

just as an aside......
Im on the LotusElanCentral site too with my m100 and we've started a wiki for people to put info and stuff like this......just gives another library resource......



if your interested in the way we put it together.......and it allows everyone to contribute
here's a link
http://wikilec.9600.org/index.php/Main_Page

[kstrutt11]

I also used M6 stainless bolts and penny washers, I also had to grind back lay some new matt over the inner sill, the corrosion had forced the fiberglass out and begun to distort and split it.

Kevin

[Peter +2]

Thank you to all for the all the tips, progress was slow today and will probably be so over the next few weeks or so.

Regards

Peter

[gerrym]

As per previous posts, corrosion resistant fasteners is definitely the way to go. 316 stainless steel is a bit marginal for the crevice corrosion potential. 304 is even worse. F51 duplex or 6Mo would be ideal if anyone knows from where to procure (and I used 316 but would replace again if anyone can source say 6Mo). Button head with an internal hex makes for a nice finish (but again as per previous post, etch prime before painting it all black.

Regards
Gerry

[bob_rich]

Hi All

I have seen a lot of reference in this post about the benefits of stainless steel fixings. With regard to corrosion is not the issue one of dissimilar metal contact? when I did my sill members I used the Spyder ones--they are galvanised and came with a full selection of zinc plated fixings. I have always been led to believe that stainless steels in contact with with mild steel or galvanised / Zinc coated steel is not a good combination for exposed use.

The old sill member lower bolts came out easily I just drilled out the old bolt heads then they snapped off easily when spanner and screwdriver were applied. The internal bolts on the inner sill plates were more of a problem as the rot was so bad on sill member that a couple of the captive insert rotated and sheered in the metal ( or rust). I had to grind these out. The old sill member was steel and just painted and was the about 25 years old.

I have found that stainless steel bolts can bind and be very difficult to remove and drilling out would be very difficult.

My info is based on the attached file from an engineering magazine I picked up a (frighteningly!!) long time back. I am not a metallurgist or chemist so would be interested to have my knowledge commented on or corrected.

cheers

Bob_rich

[gerrym]

Bob, to address some of the valid issues you raise:-

1/ I'm biased in favour of stainless steel fasteners because I have stainless steel sills, supplied by SJ sportscars. These were fitted by the previous owner and within a couple of years the zinc coated fasteners had wasted away to such an extent that they were probably down to a 1/4 of the original x-sectional area and so very weak. The resultant ferrous corrosion product resulted in low pH within the fibreglass holes and hence damage to the "glass" fibres.

2/ So that's my experience and bias out of the way.

3/ What to use for the zinc coated (galvanised) sills as supplied by Spyder. Well, if a short life and frequent replacement is not an issue, then zinc coated fasteners would be OK. Better still would be "olive drab" coated steel fasteners but even these will have a short life. Going to corrosion resistant fastener grades, some of the monels might be OK and your comments about dissimilar metals would generally be covered by the favourable area ratio between the small fasteners and the large galvanised sills. A method of equalising this a bit would be to apply a good paint coating to the sills.

4/ Stainless steels of the common austenitic variety are very marginal in wet chloride solutions and the presence of the zinc can tip them from being passive to "active", in which case not much better than a steel screw but worse in many ways because also likely to crack under the high stress concentrations inherent within a fastener. Of course this applies to countries / road use on salted roads. If the car is in the garage all winter then obviously the risk is much reduced.

5/ To get an adequate corrosion resistance from an austenitic stainless steel, it's normally necessary to increase the PRE number and the main constituent needed for this is a much increased Mo content. An example would be an Avesta "6SMo" grade. An entirely different route is to employ a mixed ferritic/austenitic structure such as a modern duplex or better still super duplex stainless with adequate metallurgical control and nitrogen content. Some of the common commercial grades make very good fasteners. Lots of benefits with this metallurgy: one of them is much reduced tendency to gall.

Hope this help
Gerry