Toyota RAV4 GX "Jack" - Scrapped 20th August 2021 // Final Video To End 2021

[St.Jude]

1 hour ago, rickvw72 said:

I’d cut a good chunk of the outer sill off, and if needed weld it back on again after repairing it. Try and do as much as you can without being on your back welding, coz that’s just not fun.

Try to lop it off where you can easily weld it on, and grind back the welds after. Looks like the inner sill is spanked. 
 

De ja vu 

Is this the same car?

I fucking hate welding upside down, on my back. I thought I cheated it by making the sill repair panel on the bench and did very little welding on my back. Don't have that luxury now.

1 hour ago, Mally said:

Providing the gusset is substantial I have no misgivings about your ability to repair safely as you suggest.

It's quite meaty. I'd hazard it's at least 3mm thick.

1 hour ago, Dick Longbridge said:

That's a massive pain in the arse for you. Well done on keeping the positivity going! I'd have found a cliff to push it over by this point I think. 

 

A cliff is being looked for! Might not be looked for by me, but there's a member of the household who's considering £5 of petrol and a lighter to it.

[juular]

Continuing to enjoy this thread. You're making good progress on this.

[1duck]

That's a shit load of work! I'd have called the scrapyard at the first half of the welding marathon. Well done on persevering with it!

[St.Jude]

3 hours ago, juular said:

Continuing to enjoy this thread. You're making good progress on this.

I like how you're enjoying my heartache!

3 hours ago, 1duck said:

That's a shit load of work! I'd have called the scrapyard at the first half of the welding marathon. Well done on persevering with it!

If I had, like I should've done, checked the whole thing for rust before I bought the subframe. If I had seen the rot, it'd have been weighed in.

That said, I spent £120 on the subframe, £60 on the two front wishbones, and £25 of steel which has so far done the passenger side, the bit on the chassis rail at the rear, and will more than do the driver's side as well. So, with man maths, I'm in for it for £205. This doesn't include the 3 bottles of gas at £35 a pop, £25 on the 5kg of wire, sanding belts, cutting discs etc.

So with that in my head, it's still cheap enough to weigh in. But, right now, two of the most popular videos on my YouTube channel are about this RAV4. My welding has come on leaps and bounds which benefits the Lada. I also watched Tyrrell's Classic Workshop at the weekend when he had a Renault Clio Williams in, and he said it's 25 years old so it's a classic car. And really my mind changed about the RAV4 when I saw that because this is the same age as the Clio, just as important (if not more so really, for good or bad), so instead of me wasting my time on a Japanese rot box like I had in my head I'm wasting my time on a classic car. 

And we all know, whatever path a man takes to get to his man maths goals, you never EVER point out the fallacy in his logic!

[bunglebus]

Either chop out enough so you can access it from the inside, or walk away for a few days then chop out enough so you can access it from the inside. Lots of stuff gets fragged due to corrosion, then 20 years later everyone's going on about how they regret doing so - see MK1/2 Escorts.

Once it's done you'll know it's safe and strong, and because you made it so

[St.Jude]

19 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Either chop out enough so you can access it from the inside, or walk away for a few days then chop out enough so you can access it from the inside. Lots of stuff gets fragged due to corrosion, then 20 years later everyone's going on about how they regret doing so - see MK1/2 Escorts.

Once it's done you'll know it's safe and strong, and because you made it so

Had intended to do this last night, but I got held up at work so by the time I got home I had a very hungry and irate pregnant wife demanding dinner. So I thought no bother, I'll do it tomorrow (Friday, today).

I'm at work, and just checked the BBC. It's going to be raining from 4pm. The BBC are full of shit, so now I've gone to the Met Office. And they have it pissing down with rain from 6pm. So I'll be doing nothing tonight either, which is highly annoying. 

[St.Jude]

How do they weld boats in the wet?

The fucking state of the weather.

[St.Jude]

Dried up nicely!

Today I will be mostly cutting steel in a homage to a high vis Mother Teresa. Bless you my child.

The piece of the previous repair that's welded in deep seems to be laminated? Anyone got any idea about that?

Also managed to smash the camera glass on my phone as I filmed myself grinding away. So that was good.

[St.Jude]

The truth shall set you free and all that:

Remnants of the inboard sill are still there along the edge of this gusset. I've put a hole in the side of it with a screwdriver as I was trying to prise off the old repair. I've attacked it with the screwdriver again and I'm not able to penetrate the other areas. So I think I can patch that hole and it will be ok.

Found a bolt though which has been there for a long time, but I can't seem to find where it used to live - I don't know what to make of that.

Had to cut more of the arch off to cut the inboard sill off.

Not bad, but not great either. I'm going to opt for thicker steel here I think, I've got some 1.2mm for the Lada which I'll have to use. 

[St.Jude]

Short day today, as it's a Sunday and if I'm treating rust inside this part it's not going to be fit for welding.

Drilled out the spot weld and cut more of the arch (like I did on the passenger side), and was greeted with no rust. Which was good.

Attacked it with the flap disc, removed the old sill so all of that "polished" surface you see is that gusset.

Tickled it with the angry pixies, so there's no hole there now. Smothered as much Vactan as I could, and I'm left with this.

I'm going out later tonight to spray it with weld through primer. Not on the surfaces to be welded, but just on everything else so that it stands up to the heat.

Weather isn't looking promising tomorrow, or Tuesday, and I'm at a funeral Wednesday so I won't be at this now until Thursday at the earliest. I'm booking a week off (hopefully) for next week, so I can just smash this solid for 10 days.

[St.Jude]

Etchweld applied while I film a video about rust removal with salt.

 

[St.Jude]

Nothing has changed in the week since I last cut in to it. Except for one thing.

I'm a patreon of Soup Classic Motoring, and he's talking about his Merc Sprinter conversion. Now the Merc Sprinter is rough, and he needed to get some panels. He found a site called easyparts.online, and while I watch the video he's doing I google it, and I think for the craic I'll see what they have for the RAV4.

They have the rear arches, both left and right, for €44 a pop.

Well I'm annoyed with myself that I didn't find it before! The wife then sees me with my head in my hands, and asks what's up. So I tell her and she goes - "oh my God just get whatever you need to make the job quicker!". Not for my sake, or my sanity, but because she wants me to do other things in the house.

So I've ordered the driver's side panel, and that should cut down the time by 3-4 days/evenings. If I base it on how long the other outer arch took to make. It's coming from Poland, using good ol' GLS - you'll remember GLS from such delivery debacles like the length of time it took to get the Wishbones to me in January - so who knows if this actually saves me time.

The trade off here though is that the wife bought the panel for me, which now means I have to re-seal the bathroom tomorrow morning. So while you're all tucking in to your sausage sandwiches on a Saturday morning think of me, battling with silicone sealant in my bathroom just so I can save myself from making an outer arch. 

[colino]

Psychology has to come into play here.  Just how much longer can you mess about with cars in general and use the excuse your trying to make it as nice as possible because she bought you such a lovely present?

[St.Jude]

42 minutes ago, colino said:

Psychology has to come into play here.  Just how much longer can you mess about with cars in general and use the excuse your trying to make it as nice as possible because she bought you such a lovely present?

I can go on forever.  How long she can put up with it, who knows. 

She did say that she'd help buy me a new(ish) Lada Niva. Which I thought was nice. Until she said in return I scrap all the cars I have (excluding the Peugeot). So that was a fairly short conversation at that point, and I remain the happy owner of 1 working car and several basket cases.

[colino]

Unfortunately you have a formidable foe. 

[Ian_Fearn]

Easyparts online have sills for my Panda….. do I dare order them. GLS+B word+COVID?

[St.Jude]

21 minutes ago, colino said:

Unfortunately you have a formidable foe. 

Love me, love my scrap!

2 minutes ago, Ian_Fearn said:

Easyparts online have sills for my Panda….. do I dare order them. GLS+B word+COVID?

Well I've pulled the trigger. I know that, since I ordered the wishbones from Autodoc, that the German part of the delivery system has improved to pre-Brexit levels. From what I can see Easyparts are Polish, so I don't know if GLS Poland are the same or worse. Time will tell!

I could ask George from Soup but as he's in Ireland I'd imagine - by now - they won't be hauling things through the UK no more. So might not be a good indicator of performance.

That said, what's the worst that could happen?

[St.Jude]

All I seem to do is spend the week checking the weather and seeing if it's going to be sunny. Everyday this week it's come up saying that Saturday would absolutely pelt it down.

Then yesterday it said it would pelt it down before 12, and then again at 6pm.

So I decide no, not worth fanning about trying to weld and cut panels. I'll do house work instead.

I woke up to it having rained, but other than one big shower at 2pm, it's bone dry. I could've actually did something today.

Now tomorrow, apparently, is going to be wet all day.

I might sue the Met Orafice. 

[St.Jude]

Well, I mean, we've been here before. Haven't we.

Fairly impressed that I was told 3-5 working days for the order to be processed, and it's left them today (or yesterday) especially as it was ordered Friday afternoon. I think any time I see 3-5 days I take that as working days, but I don't work weekends.

Also got next week booked off, so (hopefully) that means none stop, ball to wall welding ACTION ACTION ACTION for 10 days.

[St.Jude]

This afternoon I ordered a new fuel tank breather pipe. Can't get it on eBay - I tried - and that's come to £80. That's after me asking him for a reduction on the price.

Then, for a laugh, I asked him for the cost of trailing arms. He said "Oh dear, you're looking at about £700 each." - "That's without the VAT isn't it?" - "Yep"... oh how we laughed!

[St.Jude]

So today starts a period of 10* days where I have all day every day to work on this fine machine. With the exception of Tuesday as I have to attend the 20 week scan of the future ruler of the world.

And today started auspiciously - my knee is buggered. With my typical luck, I woke up on Thursday with excruciating pain all along the front of my kneecap. On the bright side the pain hasn't gotten worse, but one of the many downsides is that it's incredibly painful to bend it meaning toilet time isn't as enjoyable as it once was. But I need to crack on, so I'm Volterolled up and a knee brace is in place, so I can hobble about.

It rained this morning but has since dried up, so I'm starting to make the inboard part of the sill. I also picked up the fuel vapour line thing from Toyota. I need to remember that the prices they give don't include VAT - £83. Making this the second most expensive part I've had to pay for the RAV4, after the subframe.

[St.Jude]

End of day 1.

Knee is still sore. I cut my finger. But I've the inboard and inner sill thing done and on the car. That's the middle reinforcement bit, welded to what was left as well as the new sill.

Waiting for it to cool down so I can throw some etch primer on it. I need to flap down the spot welds for the outer sill, and trim a bit of it off as it's too long protruding on to the rear arch. The spots have penetration, and I've welded the inboard sill both inside the sill (behind that middle bit) and welded it from behind as well. Nice, strong welds - skipped the bit between the sill and rear trailing arm mount, as given that a trailing arm is £840 I'm going to take them both off to clean the rust off, treat them, and protect them. So I thought while they're off I'll have more room to get at it. 

Had an email from Parcel force about the rear arch panel, should be here Monday!

Weather tomorrow looks alright, with rain expected at 5pm. So should have a good day at this. Monday weather is looking ropey but I will get the gazebo out and tarp to help things along hopefully.

[bunglebus]

I don't know how OE manufacturers justify their pricing - especially as the parts go up in price a lot once vehicles are out of warranty, which artificially lowers the cost of warranty claims. No that doesn't make sense to me either

[St.Jude]

Well - hopefully - I'm going to write Mr.Toyota of Europe or the UK a letter asking what the craic is and whether I could avail of two arms for free. You don't ask you don't get.

At which point, Mr.Toyota-san will get a letter of the UK/Europe lads are too tight.

[Ian_Fearn]

My sills are still in bloody Poland! How much shall we bet that they arrive twisted and bent beyond recognition?

[artdjones]

That has always been the failing of Japanese make cars. It's hard to get parts, and they are incredibly expensive. It may be something to do with the Japanese system of encouraging the scrapping of cars at 6 or 8 years old by having a roadworthiness test that costs a lot of money in compulsory part replacement.

Even parts that fail commonly cost loads. Corolla E12 door check straps are well over €100 as are a set of caliper sliders for one caliper.

 

[St.Jude]

14 hours ago, Ian_Fearn said:

My sills are still in bloody Poland! How much shall we bet that they arrive twisted and bent beyond recognition?

Really? Have you checked the invoice as there's a tracking number on it? I must say that my panel spent 2 days (it seems) at English Customs?

3 hours ago, artdjones said:

That has always been the failing of Japanese make cars. It's hard to get parts, and they are incredibly expensive. It may be something to do with the Japanese system of encouraging the scrapping of cars at 6 or 8 years old by having a roadworthiness test that costs a lot of money in compulsory part replacement.

Even parts that fail commonly cost loads. Corolla E12 door check straps are well over €100 as are a set of caliper sliders for one caliper.

I never thought about the whole 6-8 year thing. But Toyota Europe (or the UK arm at least) love pointing out how long the cars last. Which now makes me think only the very lucky or the very rich get to look after them!

-

Day 2, we're getting the outer sill done today. Maybe even the bottom part of the arch as well? A quick check on the old weather there points to rain from about 5pm tonight. But, on the bright side, Monday now looks to be bone dry! Which is good as I had it down as a rain day.

[artdjones]

TBF they do last a long time, but I often feel it's because they rarely go over 45mph. At least from my observation in Ireland. The car of choice for those with grey hair 

[St.Jude]

Day 2 complete.

Bit of a miscommunication I think. Had a notification that rain was expected at 4pm, so I finished it to a point where it would be easy to start from tomorrow. But it's now nearly 5pm and there wasn't a sodding bit of rain. So I could've at least welded the lower arch today. Oh well, that's tomorrow's job.

I sorted out two duff welds on the inner reinforcement panel, made up the outer sill and welded it all together.

I kept blowing holes in the top part of the sill, hence the welds looking fatter. Sprayed in etch weld given the rain tonight.

[Ian_Fearn]

These sill panels are so thin. Without joggling the panel, blow through is inevitable.

overall mark: A+