Some of you may have noticed my previous post in the engineering section here:
How can I repair (weld) a unibody rusted near rear stab-bars?
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbul...d.php?t=920303
In that thread I proposed to deal with this rust problem quickly.
The first step of the treatment was hammering off all the loose rust and damaged steel, and then rasping and fixing and painting with rust-paint to stop all further damage.
The fact that one of the Trailing Arm brackets was 'loose' (that is capable of some motion) required immediate attention, and forced the priority of this project over everything else.
In fact, the rust had allowed the bracket to begin to detach from the unibody. This would also allow the horizontal position of the wheel to move out of alignment, resulting in worse handling and tire wear.
Again, the danger of say hitting some serious pothole or being hit by another vehicle could also result in additional dangers.
The first thing to do is to fix the bracket in its original position and prevent it from coming off or indeed having any play of motion at all relative to the body.
This was done by drilling up through the bracket (which conveniently has a hole apparently for this purpose) and into the car unibody through and under the rear seat.
First the back seat bottom must be removed (just two bolts):
Then a bolt is placed through the bracket from underneath.
On top we have a large washer followed by a lock washer (not visible) and smaller washer and nut. On top of that another lock washer and nut to lock everything down. (This part will endure vibrations from the rear wheel).
In fact, first I cut a strip of sheet steel about 2 1/2 inches wide and 8 inches long, which snugly fit inside the bracket. I drilled a hole in this to allow the bolt to pass through it, making a kind of sandwich which pins the bracket between the good flooring steel and the new piece below:
This strip was cut on an angle at each end to line up with its welding connections.
Here's a shot at the rear weld (welding in progress) from the view of the rear driver's side wheel well (wheel removed and well sawed out).
Here you can see all the bad steel has been cut out with a SawsAll. This is a hell of a job without a hoist. I used three jackstands and two jacks, (one rear wheel at a time removed). You learn to saw lying on a freezing concrete floor from just about every dangerous angle you can imagine. You absolutely MUST wear safety goggles while using the SawsAll at this close range. It throws tons of metal shards at high speed in your face in an unpredictable manner.
The shiney silver thing on right is the welding clamp ground.
The brake lines have been shielded with some ABS flexible piping in the background.