Suspension sinks on Sundays! C5 X7 that works hard + 206 GTi HDi (and 406 Coupe and 306 HDi). - MattBLancs

[MattBLancs]

306?

Yes, correct

Picture from about ~9 years ago

It's a good example of my silly sentimentality with cars!

I still own it, it's sat for a very long time now and realistically is "uneconomic to repair" - what any sensible person would call terminal rust in both inner wings and another odd point on the bulkhead.
Obviously not a sensible person as my intention is to fix it!
Very much on the back burner obviously until house and various other cars have had attention.

[MattBLancs]

Scary pictures here:
viewtopic.php?p=737528#p737528

[c16rkc]

Yeah you can save that with a bit of WD40

[MattBLancs]

Similarly, this could easily have been end of the road for my wife's 206:

There's a hole in my sill

But a while later, new metal instead

[c16rkc]

Did you fit a brand new panel? Or did you weld in new metal bit by bit?

[Paul-R]

That's just a stick-on plastic cover!

[MattBLancs]

That's just a stick-on plastic cover!

Odd isn't it, very much looks like plastic on that image, but was definitely steel. Complete replacement cill panel. The inner sill behind wasn't great, do that was rebuilt with "fresh" steel (actually ex garage shelving uprights! Does the job, out of sight and about twice as thick as original)

[mickthemaverick]

Aah the original 'off the shelf' part!!

[MattBLancs]

Shelf upright = inner sill

1 Exhibit A: definition of "like a pig in muck" :)

2 what the inside of the sill looked like, once removed.

3 off came the front wing

4 shelf bracket to make things more solid

6 strange reinforcement box at base of the B pillar, bisected to allow the shelf angle to continue through. Then reinstated. A couple of large holes added - intended to allow a squirt of waxoil inside here (ah, still not done that!)

Shelf upright = inner sill

8 spot weld drill thing removed the fixings very well. Stainless sill plate is just stick pad on rear

5 welding completed, but of filler just to neaten up what would hit you in the face on opening driver's door

7 new sill tacked onto place

Sorry the order a bit jummbled!

[CitroJim]

Wow! That's quality work Matt

[c16rkc]

Wow that's great, wish I had those skills, you are very talented!

[MattBLancs]

Make it up as I go along!

Read up as much as I can, then practice, practice and see what happens.

I found "stick" welding (electric arc) really frustrating, but MIG seems to be much more forgiving and easier for me to get along with.

The 206 was instigation for getting a MIG setup and the job went well (much to my surprise given my previous battles with stick welder: trying to knock an exhaust modification together!)

I'm well aware the 306 will be an order of magnitude more difficult. My plan is (when I get chance at last!) "have a go" = if I fail to make a decent job of it, then the 306 will head the same way it's headed if I don't try (weighed in most likely, spares donor optimistically)

[Rp0thejester]

I'm really impressed with your skills!! That's amazing work, now to work on your maths, 5 is between 4 and 6.

[MattBLancs]

Thanks all, positive feedback is very nice!

(Off to borrow my four year old's abacus help with my counting!)

In my defense I selected a bunch of photos on the phone and uploaded in a big group, I thought it would do them sequentially, oldest to newest, but "to assume makes an ass of u & me" and they are in a random order!? I added the numbers to try and pick which attachment wanted which description. About this point in proceedings a (tired and hence) stroppy youngest son needed a good bit of calming down so editing err, slowed somewhat!

[MattBLancs]

Updates at last:

Got around to finishing the trailer plug off today. Will test it next week (and then some additional heat shrink over the cable entry point to discourage the weather getting in hopefully) can't easily test yet as the big trailer took most of yesterday to fill / chop / fill some more / chop again. One if those jobs that'll take half an hour in your mind but in reality never ends!
We've shortened the hedge between the houses from about 5 foot down to about a foot! Privet so all mostly thumb diameter stems.
Big trailer holds sooooo much, very useful

FULL trailer!

Have a half hour slot booked for Saturday morning (and it's the 30th too, so just squeaking into "September's allocation" of my monthly entitlement for once with the trailer.


Out of interest/bit of an experiment I put the crusty trailer terminals into a jar of phosphoric acid. This sometimes surprises me as to what's left behind once the corrosion dissolved.
In this case the crusty screw heads no longer exist and a nice clean "stump" is all that remains on each one.
Didn't eat the brass thankfully (that was part of the experiment, see what the acid does to non ferrous metal too) but slight copper colour where it was submerged