So heres a brief description of my car and its past, ive owned this car for 14yrs, i bought it of a mate and used it for around a yr then parked it up, i dont have any pictures from then but i do from a couple of yrs ago that i will upload of my old phone, i had the idea when i was young to make it into a track car so i regrettably ripped apart my escort rs turbo for the engine and box and sold the rolling shell on ebay for £690 but if only i knew then what i know now ha. So i basically made the car have more power, put some koni adjustables on, ripped the interior out and skipped it which i also now regret, and i thought yes ive got a cheap toy for odd weekend but fast forward 12years and this is the car now feeling very sorry for itself and in need of some work to say the least, i did put it on axle stands 3years ago to start fully rebuilding it but that also never happened but now its a must i need to save the old girl lol, she does need some work underneath the inner sills/ floor have gone etc i did start grinding all this back around 18mth ago ready to cut it all out but that also stopped. I will upload more pics of the welding task i have,wish me luck

 

Nice to see someone giving an Orion some love, I had one as my first car about 16 years ago.
keep us updated with how you get on 👍

 

I will do it does need alot of work as i cant get any floor pans or inner sills from anywhere nobody does them for this model but ull see once i upload all the pics, this was also my first car so kept it in a garage but it was out of sight out of mind and now i can no longer use the garage so the car has to be moved so its time i sorted it lol

 

Good look with it , be nice to see the progress.

 

cheers bud, ive seen what uve done with your escort been a good read uve done a great job there

 

Any time mate , and thanks it's been a joy to build.

 

Before it went on axle stands around 2-3yrs ago

 

 

 

 

Once it was up on the axle stands i thought id start stripping everything of underneath to be cleaned and powder coated and then of to the bodyshop for a full respray thinking thats all id need to do as around 6-7 years ago i had new outer sills put on at a garage and they said it was solid bar the sills i then had it wax oiled once a yr so didnt worry about it needing any welding etc but as ull soon see i discovered more than i bargained for.......

 

 

Once stripping all the parts from underneath i had a closer inspection of the sills and floors and thought id see how solid it was as i noticed a small area that was bulging through the 95 layers of underseal lol. So i attacked the inner sill/floors on the passenger side with a pry bar and grinder and this is what i found.........(this is 2yrs ago)

Passenger side front inner sill and floor

Passenger side inner sill and floor in the centre area

Passenger side inner sill/floor towards the rear door

as you can see the garage i took it to did a half job they put the outer sills on then made l-shaped plates welded to the floor and the lip of the sill and didnt cut the old metal out then on top of that they put a smooth layer of body filler over the top of it and undersealed so when i took a look at it it looked like a neat job but was really a well hidden botch. Ive not started investigating the drivers side but it will be the same, once the car has been moved to its new location i will be doing all the welding there for now i need to get it back on its wheels to move it from where it is.

 

Fast forward to today and this is everything ive found welding wise

Well and truely wrotten, i have bought the repair panel for this

As previous picture shows this is the passenger inner sill/floor but with surface rust from were i previously ground it back

Passenger rear floor, will definately go through with the bar so this will be cut out and welded

Peek a boo i created a hole today this is the drivers side front inner sill/floor

Drivers side front floor were i created the hole on previous pic

This is a view from the drivers side rear arch looking down inside the drivers side sill

This is a view from the drivers side rear looking down the sill from underneath as you can see i havent poked this side and it looks ok but it definately wont be

Rear end of the car underneath