Today has been a big day for the Moosey Wagan. I've been on trying to get the rear steps re-painted and as part of that I decided that since they were off, it was time to also do some work on the chassis and floorpan at the rear. It's preventative, there's not all that much wrong with her - but there is some surface rust starting to show.

So I took off the steps a few weeks ago - that was a ballache because one of the nuts I think was cross-threaded. They're M12 nuts so they're hefty beasts. Eventually ground it off with the grinder. But it's off now and Missy Moo has been busy today putting the final coat of matt black chassis paint onto the step, the bumper holders and the spare wheel retracting device.

Meanwhile, since the step was off, I also took off the bumper to check the condition of the body underneath. All in all she's pretty tidy for a 20 year old motor in the UK. Also known as the 'saltmarshes' in winter... But under the righthand side rear bumper was this...

The passenger (left) side looks better - which is odd because normally the nearside is the side that cops all the puddles, mud and shingle from the road and ends up battered and bruised. But this is what the nearside looks like.

So, not a lot needs doing there. There is a small hole you can just about see at the very bottom. That'll be patched shortly.

So that was a couple of weeks ago when I found this. Today's work has been thus;

You can see at the bottom some new metal which is welded into place. That part of the inner sill was rotten as well, so needed cutting out and replacing. I'm pretty happy with the welds there, and it's solid now.

To the left hand side of the picture you can see a large section cut away of the very rear of the van. There was a large section of rust bubbling through from that box section there. That's been cut away too and I've added a large new section of metal butt-welded onto that rear section and then spot welded onto the box. The original panel was spot welded onto the box so it is structually acceptable to spot weld the new piece too.

So, finishing up for tonight we now have a Moosey wagan bottom that looks like this;

Tomorrow's task, whether permitting, is to make up a template so that I can cut the new panel to fit. I have a whole full rear quarter panel but because the wheel arch is good, and the panel goes right up into the bodywork, I don't want to replace the full thing. Instead I will cut the piece I need out using a template and stitch weld the new panel into place, with spot welds where they were originally spot welded. That is, along the bottom of the inner sill and onto the wheel arch.

Wish me luck.