Bulkhead woes

[retroboyo]

All looking manageable until I saw this. Oh mother cruncher.





Looks like its been previously patched but I want to cut out all the rust and do a better job on it.

Any tips on dealing with the wiring in order to weld it, also wondering if the rubber grommet is still available.

thanks in advance.

[Grrrmachine]

Working backwards:

Think the rubber grommet is still available, but you'll still have to cut it to fit it so you may as well salvage the old one.

Unfortunately, you may find that the rust is actually spreading down the seam of the inner wing. This means that you'll need to detach the inner wing from the bulkhead to do a proper repair. Whoever did the repair last time obviously didn't do this, which is why the rust has come back. If you look at my resto thread (link in sig) you'll see how I approached it.

As to protecting the loom; I bought a small sheet of 1mm aluminium and folded it around the wires. I was able to replicate the strange hexagonal shape of the loom hole enough so that the wires were completely encased, and the aluminium helps conduct the heat away from the area too. You might also want to get some 3-5mm copper plate so make a heat sink behind where you weld.

[Duke137]

When messed about with one of my old cars I removed the engine, dash and the complete wiring loom....

It's a grim job

[nickso]

Use a plumbers heat mat to protect the wiring.

That's going to be a huge hole