Repair of rear seat box section - passenger side

After seeing how bad the box section was I made a mission today to get it fixed, nearly managed it !
There was substantial rot and a nasty swelling between the skin and cross member structures so all that had to come off.
The sections were not too difficult to make which is just as well as my fabrication capability is very limited indeed. Still, make your patch parts fit as well as you can before welding anything !

[@johnmoncrieff3034]

John, May I remind you that we vehicle body engineers do have brains that are far superior to a computer (only a little slower)!! I worked in the Drawing office at Humber road in the mid 60's when this and the other later models of Hillman, Humber, Singer, & Sunbeams were designed. Most of the senior colleagues were all used in aircraft design during the war (39 - 45) and had to know all about the stress calculations to keep the planes as light as possible while being as strong as possible To cope with the forces involved in areal dog fighting! These skills were transferred to the car bodies when they returned to peaceful times! Rootes bodies were some of the most torsionally stiff shells in production with the AVENGER having the stiffest in that cars class!

[@as3cs3]

Hi @johnmoncrieff3034. I don't suppose you know of any drawings that might have been made regarding a Hillman Imp pick-up commissioned by John T Panks and built in the Rootes Experimental Dept between 1965 & 1967? It's a long-shot but the timeframe you mention above fits

[@hillmanimprestoration]

Sorry John, I did not think I put any slight on the engineering side at all, in fact quite the opposite :-) it is one of the things I actually admire about the time and the car itself especially given the time lines from concept to delivery. Apologies to everyone that took what I said any differently to that. My background is also in engineering ;-) and role through the drafting board to full cad and simulation albeit not aircraft or vehicle body design.

[@scottclements1040]

Excellent work, John but I shiver every time you grab the rusty edges, observe your own safety advice and wear gloves 🧤so I can watch without stressing.

[@hillmanimprestoration]

Cheers Scott. Gloves are on most of the time but yeah, slipped up on that one just doing the recaps. Unfortunately the touch screens do not respond well to the gloves so camera control is not so easy.