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The new outrigger didn't come with a bracket to fix it to the underside of the tub, so I cut the old one off and welded it to the new outrigger to re-use it. The previous post talked about how I 'moved' one of the holes that had been drilled offset. The hole in the tub just needed widening a touch to take the bolt in the new position, which was not a big deal as the tub behind the bracket was already quite badly corroded and would need reinforcing anyway.
This is not a load bearing mounting point, it's just to give the tub some extra rigidity by connecting it to the chassis, but I decided to cut some aluminium plates to reinforce the section anyway.
The chassis rail behind the outrigger needed a repair section welding in. While I had the rail open I was able to check the loom. This vehicle has had a new rear quarter-chassis fitted at some point, and I think while that was done the loom lost its binding somehow. I re-taped these wires up with insulation tape and pushed them to the back of the rail away from where I'd be welding.
Here is the repaired chassis rail with some weld-through primer applied, and the bracket (before I 'moved' the right-hand hole), and aluminium plates in position. There's another plate on the other side, and I have some rivets coming in the post so when they arrive I will put a rivet in either side of the bracket to hold the tub and plates together and take the stress off the original corroded section.
Next, I clamped the outrigger to the chassis rail and jacked the new fuel tank up into position so I could tack weld the outrigger to the bracket in the correct position. Then I removed it all and welded the bracket to the outrigger in the garage where I could move to get a bead all the way around it.
With all that done it was reasonably straightforward to weld the outrigger on. Here you can see the modified bracket with stainless steel fixings that should not react with the aluminium plates or tub where they go through.
I had to cut about 3-4mm off the top of the outrigger's back plate, and a bit more, at an angle, off the bottom because it was slightly deeper than the chassis rail. Making these cuts meant I could get nice flush beads along the top and bottom.
There was some more awkward welding than with the bulkhead outrigger. For the front bead, under the driver's seat, I had to sit up inside the seat base where the fuel tank would normally be and weld left-handed. I wasn't looking forward to the top bead, as there's not much clearance between the chassis rail and floor, but that actually went quite well - watching from one side of the outrigger while controlling the gun from the other actually worked perfectly.
I need to bolt the sill stay back on and rivet those plates, and then the next job is the front fuel tank outrigger. I wasn't going to replace that one, but as the new fuel tank has a slightly different filler neck, I've got to move that front outrigger back about an inch to get everything lined up, and so I may as well fit a new one.
So far so good, and the worst welding on the vehicle is still not mine! ;)
