Romahome on duo chassis - Corrosion repair

[Lanky94]

        Evening everyone. First post if thats OK please.  I have introduced myself.

I am at the point of buying a Romahome Duo on a 2001 Berlingo chassis. (66K on clock).

As far as i can see without ramps, there appears to be no corrosion on the sills, or underneath. There is one bit on a cross member runing left to right in the engine bay. I have uploaded a pic. Can someone please tell me if this an easy welding repair, or will the weld heat bust the windscreen, or melt things?

[jj9]

In that location a MIG welding repair should be no real problem and the windscreen shouldn't be a problem.

With most welding repairs the rot isn't always limited to what you can see, you often have to cut back a lot further to find good sound metal. 

I would guess to have rot in that area there has been standing water, so there could be rot inside the scuttle so make sure to have a good look in there. 
Check that no water has found its way into the cab, check that the carpets are dry.

.

[oilyrag]

Difficult to see if that's surface rust or whether there are any holes. Surface rust can just be cleaned up & Kurust. If using an angle grinder/welder near the screen make sure the glass is covered with a damp towel - an angle grinder will put little bits of carbide into the glass, as will spatter from a welder. Disconnect battery and even disconnect/remove ECUs to make sure no 'electrical' harm comes from the welder. Also make sure that there's no fuel line or soundproofing to set fire to and keep a fire extinguisher handy.
Apart from all that, it's a couple of hour's work!

[Romahomepete]

I would be taking the wipers and plastic grill off to look at the otherside but I would have thought it was a fairlyeasy repair, with the bonnet off and the winscreen covered up.

Tha hardest job will be removing any flamable material from the vicinity including up under the scuttle in the cab.

Knowing the price of Romahomes (we have an Outlook) it has got to be workth repairing.

Not a common area for rust on a Berlingo but C15s had rusted scuttles, when we had a C15 Romahome I had to rebuild the scuttle and the area round the bottom corner of the windscreen.

Peter

[ffrenchie]

It looks easy enough to weld, slap some wet newspaper on the screen and cut the rusty section out, disconnect the battery and crack on. I did a similar job on an old Corsa my daughter had, didn't bother removing the bonnet just wedged it up as high as it would go with some 2x1

[GraemeT]

On the Romahome backend there's a bit of 'extra chassis' added (sorry not sure what the posh name is) - this extends the normal steelwork to give you the back door and surrounding area.
Have a good look around the join area and forwards to around the middle of the rear wheel arches - the added section can sometimes cause a deformation/crack - my pet theory being folks dumping a 50 litre Aquaroll or the like inside the back door and then driving over cobbles for hours applies an extra force on the joint section.

[Romahomepete]

Graeme that is only on the R25.  You can buy the chassis Extension from Noth Star on the Isle of Wight

The C15s  and the Berlingo based Duo, Outlook and R20 just use the standard Citroen platform cab nvestmenwith no extra steelwork at the back.  we have had a C15 and have owned our current Outlook from new in 2007.  It is the best investment that we have made.

Peter

[GraemeT]

Ahhh - my bad then Peter apologies.

[RattyCortina]

I would just add that I would cover the engine as well, I have an old fire blanket that I use.