Oh Bollox!!!......

[Ol'Jeffers]

......or words to that effect!

Driving along today and BANG!!!

Someone else's suspension top strut brace appeared through the passenger's side floorpan....right through the carpet too.
Took it round to my repairer who told me that fortunately it had caused no other damage but I can strip back the carpet and straighten the floor and
beat the jagged edge back into position and then they can gas weld it.
So not my best day today. I can tell you that the air in Kent was a deep shade of blue!
So what I intend to do is, as the carpet has a small X shaped cut in it, to extend the cuts so I can see the damage then use a block of wood and a
large hammer to beat out the dent and bend the torn metal back into it's original position and get the welding done. I shall then put a piece of common or garden lining paper
over the damaged floor and carefully glue the carpet down on it which should save the carpet. I'm doing it this way to avoid the job of sufficiently removing the carpet which means
taking out the seat and, I think, a lot of the plastic trim around the door.
If anyone has a better way please let me know here.

[Coco]

Bad luck O.J. - at least it wasn't your suspension.

If you can gain sufficient access to the damaged area then that seems O.K. although in an ideal world you would get everything clear and have a good view of it all.

[Chris]

Bloody hell, I bet that made you jump. Amazing that something like a strut brace could come adrift and the owner did not stop to pick it up. Lucky you weren't on your bike.

[steve valentine]

I'd be inclined to remove the carpet as much as possible, you're going to need to swing a big hammer to straighten that out right.

Bet the bang made you jump a bit, I remember a big bolt getting thrown up and hitting the top of a van I was driving, just above the windscreen, thought it was coming right for my head, I filled my underpants I can tell you

[Ol'Jeffers]

Bad luck O.J. - at least it wasn't your suspension.

If you can gain sufficient access to the damaged area then that seems O.K. although in an ideal world you would get everything clear and have a good view of it all.

I can see the floor quite clearly from beneath the car so it'll be OK. I'll jack it up enough just to lift the body up off the suspension and work like that.
Beat from the inside and check by looking underneath. Although I can see using a straight edge how much I need it to bend. Then get the edges of the damage back
together using a flat chisel. Luckily I have a Machine Mart just down the road!

Cheers for the commiserations though, chaps.alut::thumbsup:

[Ol'Jeffers]

Well it wasn't too hard to (sort of) straighten the floor panel.
It's made of relatively thin steel and I was able to push out the dent
with the heel of my trainer! The jagged metal has been bent back as closely as I
can manage and any small gaps can be filled with weld.
The hole measured 27x8mm.
There is an inch (25mm) thick foam layer beneath the carpet and I've
cut out a large square section in preparation for the the welding next week.
This will have to be glued back after the welding and I'm thinking of using
some solvent-free vinyl floor covering adhesive which I have left over from re-flooring the bathroom!
I've also bought a small tin of underseal in case the local Citroen repairer has none available.
Have I missed anything??cratch:

[andy-womble]

Metal on Citroens seems to be quite thin, remember catching something beneath my ZX which was quite new at the time. Ripped a tear in the floor pan on it...;.

[Ol'Jeffers]

I didn't manage to finish this tale of woe so here's the outcome.
I wasn't to impressed by by local Citroen repairer's estimate of £120 for what was a ten minute welding job
so I took it along to a bodyshop that someone in the trade recommended to me a while back.
The guy there said he'd weld it up for nothing if I let him get the rest of the car body in some sort of order!
This bloke is good, he specialises in vintage vehicles, and there isn't much he doesn't know. He even spotted a dent I didn't know I had!
So I let him have carte blanche and took a deep breath. Four days later he phoned me to say it was all done.
He dropped it off and picked up the Fiesta he'd lent me and I'm looking at a pristine vehicle.
'I think that's pretty much what it looked like when it was new.' he said
'It wasn't too hard and I'm happy with the appearance now, so if you give me £425 for cash I'll be happy.
The bonnet and front bumper has been resprayed and a nasty little dent in the rear passenger side quarter has been sorted and the whole quarter
and rear bumper resprayed.
The two supermarket dings in the drivers door have been removed and the door resprayed. One had to be filled and the other pushed out.
(You can see these in the photos I posted earlier.) To carry out the job he's removed all of the side trims so he could see any damage beneath them.
He's repaired the floor, congratulated me on my efforts at knocking out the dent without stretching the steel and re-done it!
He's undersealed the whole of the passenger's side floorpan too.
I'm now frightened to take it out in case I scratch it!! :woop:
He's in Rainham, Kent if anyone wants some work done.