Back to the Bulkhead Section
Please be aware that ECR is now a Defender repair and modification shop only.
We no longer work on Range Rovers, Discos or Series Rovers.
These pages are from work we did in the past and left up for your enjoyment.
Series IIA Bulkhead Repair
This Series IIA bulkhead has come to us from a customer that is doing his
own restoration in NY. Well, there is actually more to the story. The customer
brought us his original bulkhead to rebuild, but unfortunately it was so
far gone we could not save it. It was basically a little bit of rust held
together with a lot of body filler. So in this case we had to search for
a better "donor" bulkhead for the customer. Luckily we were able
to locate a very nice bulkhead that fit the customer's Late Series IIA
and we will now be getting that bulkhead into shape for him. We will be
doing the bulkhead metal work and putting the bulkhead into primer, and
the customer will be doing the rest. As is common with 30-40 year old bulkheads,
this one has a fair bit of rust as you can see above.
Here you can see the floor section on the LH side has numerous holes and
the lower section is rusted through. Most shops would just put horrible
pop rivet patches all over this bulkhead and not truly address the rust,
but with our bulkhead jig we can bring it back into top notch shape. The
next step is to cut all the rust away and media blast the bulkhead to find
the hidden rust and damage.
Once we cut away the rusted areas you can see that there wasn't much left
to this bulkhead. The top section is workable though as is the middle section,
so next we'll media blast the section back to white metal to find any pin
holes or further damage. Then we'll start to bring the bulkhead back into
shape.
In this image you can see the RH upper hinge section. The spots that we
know to be problem areas on a bulkhead are all blasted back to white metal,
as seen above. That way we know that no pin holes, hidden rust or body
filler is present in the bulkhead. Once all the rust is removed we remake
any small panels by hand to get the bulkhead back into shape. In this bulkhead
the areas around the upper hinge, and especially the door seal lip were
badly rusted, so small repairs have been done by tig welding in new steel
pieces. Once these welds are ground flush you will never see them. All
ECR bulkheads are done with 100% steel. We do not use any body fillers
in our bulkheads, not even a skim coat. The metal work is all done by our
skilled fabricators, so body filler is not required. The factory made 100%
steel bulkheads with no filler, and so do we.
Above you can see that we have set in the repair panels for the kick panel,
footwells and top sections and tacked welded them into place. The jig arms
have been removed and what you are left with is starting to look like a
complete bulkhead again. Now that everything is tack welded into place
we will remove the temporary fasteners and duplicate all the factory spot
welds with the tig welder. This will give the bulkhead its strength and
a correct look. The next step will be to make the required modifications
that the customer desires, such as a lager opening for the brake pedal
box for power brakes, the opening for a Mansfield heater, etc. We do these
mods now so that all the holes that need to be in the bulkhead are there
before the dunk tank process and the primer coat, thus giving the steel
better protection.
Here you can see the bulkhead being "dunked". It is a simple,
although messy, process that makes the bulkhead last as long as possible.
The known problem areas in a bulkhead are the floors and door posted. The
new floors we have installed have a zinc coating to prevent future rust.
We use the dunk tanks to combat rust in the door posts.
By submerging the entire door post sections, as you can see above, and
the top section (yet to be done) in heavy duty rust resistant primer we
coat the inside of the steel making a better longer lasting bulkhead that
will not rust from the inside out like the factory units did.
This image shows the bulkhead in bare white metal after media blasting
the exterior to get ready for the multiple coats of epoxy primer. You will
notice that the holes needed for the Mansfield heater dual power brakes
are already in place. As you can see in this bare steel piece, there is
no body filler and no rust. The bulkhead is now something that exists no
where else: an as new, zero rust, jig built and correct fitting Series
IIA bulkhead.
Here you can see the completed bulkhead. All the metal work is done and
it has been dunked and now primed with multiple coats of PPG epoxy primer.
You can see that the details are correct and there is absolutely no rust.
The bulkhead is now ready for pick up by the customer and eventual paint
and install into his on going rebuild of a Series IIA Rover. The ECR built
bulkhead will help his project go smoothly and last a long long time to
boot. How is the bulkhead in your Series Rover looking? Like this? If not
contact ECR we can make you bulkhead better than new, just like this one.
If your SII/IIA or III bulkhead needs repair, contact ECR
and we'll be happy to get it back into shape for you!
ECR