Club 80-90 Forums

Evening all,

I’m caught in 2 minds and hoping someone can educate me a little please.

My van (caravelle 1989 1.9 petrol) is currently being worked on. Cutting out all rust and full re spray. The floor pans in the front (both sides) and steps (again both sides ) need totally replacing. I have to source these parts.

I have looked on brickwerks/just kampers etc and it appears the door steps have an inner and outer part, where as the floor pan is just one individual piece - question 1 - is this correct?

Question 2 is - there appears to be expensive ones and cheaper ones. Excuse my lack of knowledge on this but it’s only a piece of metal so how different can the quality be?

The other option is the guy doing the work said he could just shape a piece himself, however I thought having genuine parts is probably safer even though appears to be a lot more expensive.

Cheers
Wesley

I’ve got a pretty clean van I’m breaking near Portsmouth, or buy steps and floors genuine if you can

Cheaper parts are made from thinner metal and normally a bad fit,if the welder can fabricate then making up the panels won't be a problem.I bought new steps for mine but ended up making my own as they were paper thin and same with outer sill.Buying original panels in my opinion don't make van any safer than copy panels it's how they are fitted makes it safer.

Depends on how much needs replaced. The flat parts of my doorsteps failed the MOT, but all surrounding metalwork was good.
I certainly didn't want to go chopping out good original steel just because the repair panels continued up towards the floor and included the door sill below. Much against the garage's advice for some reason
I'd have just shaped a repair patch if it weren't for the holes for the step mat, so bought JK steps, cut the flat panels out and fitted just those bits. Job done. However, the full replacement panel was two parts spot welded together and the curves higher up were very wrinkly. These were Klokkerholm panels and I certainly wouldn't have wanted to use them complete as they came. They'd have needed a fair bit of work to get to what I'd have called an acceptable standard.
So, nothing wrong with making up a repair panel or simply using part of an aftermarket - or genuine! - one if that bit replaces all that's in need of repair.

Pretty much what I did only needed the flat part of steps just made it out of thicker material.Didnt put the holes for rubber step mat because me thinks this is a water trap and that's why it rots so just left it painted and still good 4 years later,I believe the step is part of mot now.