Inner sills

I hadn't planned on replacing the sills, but once I started looking it was clear they needed doing.

Somebody in the past had fitted cover sills - 8" wide sills which are just welded over the top of the old (rusty) sills. If you have a Mini do not do this!!! - it might keep your car on the road for another year but behind those sills the real (structural) sills will be rotting away.



I removed the cover sills first. Woohoo! No rust! Oh no wait, I think I can see a bit.



The "real" outer sills were almost completely gone, and the jacking point was dust. It's a good job no one tried to jack the car up on this



The cover sills completely removed, showing the extent of the rust



The first job is to cut the old inner sills out. I just cut these out using a cutting disc in the grinder since I would be replacing everything.



I replaced the inner sills in two halves, just to make the job a little easier and to make sure I didn't remove too much metal at once.



With the old sills removed and the new ones in place, the next job was to replace the jacking point. I bought a heritage jacking point panel and seam welded this in place. I could have plug welded it but since I'llbe jacking the car up on this I thought it much better to seam weld it. Plug or spot welds will eventually start to seperate the panels thus allowing water in, much better to just seal it all.

I also cut the old seatbelt mounting off the old sill and seam welded that onto the new inner sills.



That's better! The new inner sills just about in place. The next job is to look at the rear "bins" and the door step panel.

You'll also notice that I've welded a bar across the door gap, this is to ensure that the door gap doesn't collapse with the sills removed.