bad luck

[yonner]

i started to strip down all the inside of my car tonight and went round it with me very techinical mot tool that i just refer to as my rust poker all the floorpan next to the sills are gone there is a small hole under the osr seat nxt to the wheel arch and a hole about the size of my arm on the ns sill at the back picks to folow

i am a very good welder but this will be the first time removing and repalcing pannels what advice can you guys give me

[Onne]

Buy good quality panels, saves a lot of hassle, so I have heard

[paulk]

Don't poke all the rust out yet.

For the bits you will have to hand make you need the old shape to guage if your close. Some of the under panels are quite curvy and if like me you beat them all away you then have to fettle new metal in with the guess and bad memory process which is time consuming.

I agree with Onne buy good panels, I like ESM's but thats just me, I'm sure other people will give you other companies to try.

Paulk

[rayofleamington]

You can get the inner sill pieces with additional extension for the floor. If you use them, make sure you cut away the old floor so that you can join the 'inner step' to the new floor (otherwise you'll loose ~60% of the sill strength)

As mentioned already - be careful what you cut away. Ideally only cut the arera where you are working on (don't cut the whole side of the car away in one go if you can avoid it). Also leave the doors on and check door alignment after tack welding (It's too late to find out the shell has twisted a little after you've seam welded the sill!)
Cover the glass inside and out to prevent millions of grinder sparks getting into the glass.
Remove the complete interior (helps limit the effects of the small fires you will get)
Make sure you have easy access to the inside of the car (with a bucket of water) when welding under it incase one of the fires wants to take hold.

[chickenjohn]

I'll second ESM panlels, great service and good quality LMC/Hadrian panels.

Make sure you cut ALL the rust away, including "clean" pitted metal before welding in the new panels. Butt welds are preferable.

On my Traveller (LHS), I found that the floor closing sill panel, although it had a few inches of floor pan, as well as will on it, that the floor was rusty in this section too! Thats why it has some of the floor.

BTW, your car doesnt sound too bad, if you can weld, no probs!!