I found an offcut of 1.6 in the sheet-metal shop, and using the section I cut out of the inner sill below the B-pillar as a template, the sheetie made up an 18" section of inner sill. This time, I thought I'd have a shot at pressing the dimples into the inner sill. One of the guys on FB-EK described how he did it with a home-made die, a socket, and a vice.
Peering inside the sill for a good place to cut, and guessing where the inner sill would have ended gave me 14-1/2" in length. The dimples are 2" dia at the base, and 1-1/2" dia at the top. They're 4 mm deep (units, sorry). On this part of the sill, the dimples are spaced at 3-1/4" intervals, and are centred 1-1/2" below the top return of the inner sill.
I found one of my father's bowl blanks - a piece of hardwood with a 2" dia recess turned into the base. I put a big Jubilee clip around it so it wouldn't split, and measured up my sockets. The 1-1/8" socket was 1-1/2" OD. So far so good.
Mark up inner sill section. Check marking-up, only to discover that my reference was at the wrong end. Remove markings. Mark section again, with arrows indicating top and front. Compare marked-up repair section with the inner sill again. Go to work with the home-made press tooling . . .
OK, but - the metal bows in every direction, requiring straightening work with vice, hammer and dolly. Once that's done, it looks satisfactory.
Now to remove the inner sill section, while keeping as much as possible of the floor and the box-section just in front of the rear wheel arch. The floor and the flange of the box section will locate the inner sill repair. I sliced off another few inches of the outer sill to give me room to swing the angle grinder and drill. From the inside of the sill, I could see where the spot-welds were. I drilled through them with a 1/8" drill, and then got out with the spot weld drill from on top. I cut half-way up the inner sill with the angle grinder, and finished the cut off with a hacksaw. I tried to pull the inner sill piece out, but it didn't want to move. Found another spot weld and drilled it. Ping! And out came what was left of the inner sill (bottom half sliced off so I could get the drill in).
The astute observer will notice an "oops" here. The return isn't wide enough for most of its length. I just blindly used the section I cut out at the base of the B-pillar. Didn't think that the return is of different width here. I'll fix that with Mister MIG.
But now that the inner sill's out, I can get into the U-section at the front of the rear wheel arch. It's complicated by the ribs, and also because none of the fold lines are straight lines. I'm going to repair it in three pieces (which I'll have to do on the passenger's side too).
Rob
