Morris Minor Owners Club

As you can see there is a big hole near where the starter solenoid goes, there was a bracket welded here for the engine steady but it had rusted all round the weld and pulled off easily in my hand As it is near to the shock absorber I think the strength of a repair here is important? I have only done basic welding before (welding tubes together) so is this feasible for a beginner to fix? I was thinking of welding on a large L shaped steel plate, once I have removed all the rust and treated it. Also you can see the support of the battery box needs attention, but as this is not critical to the strength of the car could I just treat the rust and leave it as it is??

Picky

thats an mot issue. it will need to have a good strong plate butt welded into position, to be a good job. i dont think plating it is allowed at mot, if its near the shock. Its near the starter rather then the shock point, so a plate may be ok. best make a strong neet job.

so i cut out the hole until it is a square shape, then butt weld a square piece of metal in place to fill the hole?

thats it. cut it nice and square. is that a crack to the left?. could it be possible to pull up a plate up from inside/underneath, allowing you to weld along the edge of the hole. ie the plate has a threaded hole, which studding could be used to pull it in position, welded, then remove the studding and weld in the hole. Could stop extra damage from cutting.

there is a very small crack starting to form at the edge of the hole, I would cut that out and and an extra half inch or so along to be on the safe side, so it is probably going to end up a rectangle not a square. I cant believe this got through the last MOT with that hole there!

i would try and weld the crack, not cut it out. the shape dont matter, best to try and remove as little as possible. the tick plate from underneath will help get a good weld. the butt type can melt through. got to be accurat with the butt weld

but surely to cut it out will eradicate it altogether?

cut it as you need to, but the plate from underneath allows you to pool the weld. but dont cut more then is necessary, its just to get those 2 edges square

your hole looks like it cracked out rather then rust. you seam to have clean edges. like you could weld to them. the thing is to fill the hole as neatly, and as strong as possible.

if you try the butt weld its easier to cut it square and weld

thanks for the advice brixtonmorris, I think I will go for the butt weld to make a good job of it. got several other holes (much smaller) to sortout aswell ill post some pics tomorrow see what people suggest.

Picky

try and measure the thickness of the metal there, and get a plate of the same thickness if not a little thicker gauge. The engine shaking must have caused the metal to fracture.

I have been painting the whole engine bay which is why I have painted over the rusted areas, I will have to remove the paint where the welding needs doing. These areas look a bit trickier, I will gain a little experience from doing the butt weld by the shock absorber but these curved sections look a bit complicated to butt weld. but as these areas are not critical to the strength of the car, it is only important that it will pass an MOT and will not rust any further. im wondering whether just to weld plates over these bits?

Picky

No, don't weld plates over the rust holes, that will create another rust trap waiting to fail again. Cut a neat rectangular patch of 1mm steel that replaces all the rusty/ thin/pitted areas, scribe around the repair piece onto that area ( I assume engine tie plates from the pic) cut out the scribed area. File the repair panel to fit, if it needs shape, you can bend it over your knee if you used ~1mm steel you'll be able to form it to the shape of the hole.

Then tack the piece in 1/2 way down the sides of each side, then the corners, put more tacks in, join the tacks with butt weld, grind the welds to get a neat repair, paint both sides. job done!

Time taken to get the repair piece to fit accurately is time well spent!