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. The bulkhead is in average shape, but luckily we can get it back into top shape. Above you can see that we have set the bulkhead in our bulkhead jig to check for any accident damage. Luckily in this case it appears to be rust is the only battle to fight, but the rust was bad enough that the bulkhead feet have rusted off.
On the passenger side the foot is gone as well, and the rust has eaten a good way up the floorboards.
In this bulkhead even a previous patch job didn't stand up. Above you can see the tin repair panel that was put in at some point, and even that has rusted away. Our first step is to go over the bulkhead and make the customer aware of what the bulkhead looks like and what it will take to repair it. As you can see above the bulkhead has all the typical rust in the footwells and door posts. These aspects are easy for us to repair. The customer also sent us this bulkhead pre-blasted, so checking for rust is easy and will save the customer money.
Next step is to cut away the rusted areas that are too far gone to repair and get things lined up to install the new steel panels. You can see in the image above that the bulkhead has been cut back to the bare minimum in this process. The good news is that all new metal will go back in place of that old rusty mess.
Here you can see that the upper hinge area of this bulkhead is in pretty good shape. We have cut away the old rusted door post and are now ready to make the repairs. As you can see, the cuts made to replace a door post correctly are very tricky, you don't just cut the post out with a saw. Some of the retainers still need to stay in place. This is where most bulkhead repairs go wrong for other shops. They just cut the door post off straight, and then without a jig they try to butt weld it back in. That does not work correctly.
Here you can see the new floors have been installed and the lower area of the tunnel has been repaired. We don't just put patches on top of your old rusty parts, we cut out the rust, then put in all new steel for a long lasting repair. If you are doing a restoration on your Series Rover, you don't want to be taking the bulkhead out again a few years down the road. You can also see above that the floor panels we install have the correct pressings to duplicate the factory look and are zinc coated for long life, much longer than the factory panels.
Above you can see the new door post has been installed. The repair looks factory correct and even more important it is lined up so that the doors of the Rover will open up and close properly. The bulkhead is a key part of the body on a Series Rover. If you get it wrong nothing will line up.
Here you can see the bulkhead with fabrication nearly complete. The new feet, floors, kick panels and door posts have been installed and all the rust repairs have been made.
This image shows the bulkhead with all its fabrication complete. It will now move to our paint shop to be dunked in our dunk tanks to help prevent future rust. The dunk tanks submerge the top vent flap section and the L and R door posts completely in a rust resistant primer. This, combined with the primer and paint we will apply on the outside of the bulkhead will mean long lie for this piece, at least another 30 years.
In this image you can see the bulkhead has been dunked in our dunk tanks to get rust resistant paint inside the trouble areas on a bulkhead and then the exterior has been media blasted back to white metal. What you see above is bare metal, ready for primer, as you can clearly see there is no rust of any kind on this bulkhead.
The bulkhead is then moved to our spray booth where numerous coats of PPG epoxy primer are applied so that the bulkhead is sealed and ready for the customers choice of paint.
In the case of this bulkhead that is numerous coats of Coniston Green. The bulkhead now has 3 coats of primer and 3 coats of top coat, making a long lasting barrier against rust and corrosion, and it looks great as well.
This customer also sent along a number of small pieces for us to prep, prime and paint for his project. He asked us to fill some old holes in his wiper motor cover and get all those pieces primed and painted as well. The fabrication to fill the holes and the paint work is no problem here at ECR. Above you can see the customers bulkhead and his small pieces completed and ready to go. The pieces will now cure overnight and then they will be carefully packaged so that the customer can collect them. It seems odd to think about how rare a rust free bulkhead is, as you can see rust free bulkheads all over the ECR web site, but when you think about it, you start to realize just how rare it is to see one done to this detail level that would stump any judge in any show to prove it wasn't original. Most places just slap some sheet tin over the rust, but that ins't what ECR is all about. Its all about doing it right.
ECR