Well, thats toast! Advice needed (again!)

Reason2doubt wrote: I think Riccy on this forum had a really cool way of dealing with the rust he had on his truck 'Ulysses' - cut it all out and put in some fairly hefty metal girders to replace the existing metal supports - could be a way of doing it if you can show someone the photos from his thread and get them to replicate it?

Me101; It does look bad, maybe worse than ulysses, but the metal you see is pretty much what I replaced (and more!). Its pretty simple stuff to experienced welders, I was learning as I went. With hindsight I would have bought a new front panel and wheel arch/inner wings and saved myself a lot of work.

Before you make a decision I would get under with a hammer and have a good bash about all the sills and other bits of thin metal you can get at to establish if its just the front or not, you dont want the same thing elsewhere next year if its getting fixed up

Looks pretty average for a jimny.

Saw it on facebook and posted a picture of my "repair" basically cut the lot off and just added support for the wing.....added lightness!

Suzuki Jimny....made of rust and held together with dirt....learn to weld or earn money and pay.....only choice really.

Thanks guys. Been to see it, and we've agreed to putting a new front panel in (just ordered). MoT to Sept I think, but he did say it probably wouldn't have been picked up on. So hopefully have it done in a week! While bumper off, nearly bought a winch plate, but can't stretch that far at the minute. Looking at the rest under the plastic inner arch, it looks really solid, so worth saving I think. Keeping a look out for a rear locker now.

UPDATE - it is back on my drive. I just need to make some adjustments to the bumper for the winch plate / recovery points that accidentally fell on while the car was in bits. If anyone doing the same thing, the guy sorted it says the panel was fine to work with, no issues. It was the £310 Ebay one.

Looks very smart!! Glad you kept with it and didn't get rid of the Jimmers.

The kids love it. I just had tit on with it because it only went in for the floor welding on the body mounts near the doors, and just became an expensive job. All done now though, but got to get the rear bearings replaced to see if that stops the noise from the back end. Best be getting some overtime in!

That’s a great job you are doing there. It looked pretty terminal from the photos so it’s great that you managed to save it.

I hope the new model is better protected from rust, l thought Defenders were bad but it takes about 30 years for them to get to that state.

He didn't cut the old one out, just sneezed on it!

And he did have to put some patches in, the inner arches didn't meet the new panel once the rust was removed!