As our Range Rover restoration project moves along, we’ve reached a point where we have to make some repair panels for the rear floor. The main floor panel, which we’ve already cut out, rests on a perimeter lip that has almost completely rotted away. There are aftermarket replacement panels for the side panels that originally incorporate these flanges, but using these would have meant removing a lot more metal than just the rusted area.
Instead, we decided to fabricate our own patch panels using 20-gauge steel sheet. The sections we’re going to repair are essentially straight panels with a pair of opposing 90-degree bends. The floor only drops down about half of an inch, a fairly tight jog for a benchtop brake.
Because the floor is a little over 53 inches long and the tool we’re using to bend these panels only has an opening of about 20 inches wide, so we make three 18-inch long pieces per side which we’ll need to weld together to make a single run.
Here I’ve taken my trimmed up blanks and marked the bending line using a wide marker and my old dial calipers. This is where I’ll make the first bend on the brake. I’ve also made reference marks for my own use.
Watch the episode below to see how we use the Eastwood Versa Bend sheet metal brake to form these patch panels.