3 into 2 does go!

After all the hours spent removing the old sills, box sections & rusty floor pan edge and repairing everything ready for the 'reverse journey' I was keen to get the new sill inner sill welded in when I realised there was one last point to be addressed - the front seat belt inertia reel mechanism fixing point to be precise. As mentioned before, in an earlier post, the new inner sill panel is a series 3 part from which I had removed 2 'rogue' brackets as they weren't the same as those on my series 2. Luckily I had kept them.....

The new inner sill had a re-inforcing plate with captive nut for the fixed end of the seat belt in exactly the same place as the original but there was no plate for the inertia reel. I considered just welding a nut to a metal plate and putting this on but read somewhere that the heat of welding can distort the threads in the nut. I therefore decided to make one from the bracket which was removed from the new panel.

this picture shows (bottom left) two seat belt fixing points on old sill whereas new panel only has front one, traces of spot welds show just above it show where bracket was removed (picture can be enlarged supersize by opening in new window).

other bracket which was removed was for front seat mount and, similarly, traces of old spot welds can be seen inside group of holes drilled for plug welds.

series 3 inertia reel bracket hammered flat and part with captive nut cut out to make new part

new part being measured up against surviving plate from driver's side inner sill

rear face of new part after welding together bits of series 3 bracket

and finally, welded into place

these pictures show the series 3 front seat mounting bracket which was situated in roughly the same place as the series 2 bracket but was a different shape. I decided it would be better to remove it and retain the original. cut had to be made to shorten it enough for spot weld cutter to reach spot welds