Advice on SWB Maverick Rear Body Mount Rot

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Hi All
On my 1997 Maverick SWB 2.7 TD I seek knowledge/experience to what corrodes or rusts out on the rear chassis, body mount and general area beyond the rear spring mounts.
Both upper rear spring mounts have been re-fabricated and welded in place. However past 18 months, if a rear wheel drops into a pot hole the wheel and spring assembly recover with deafening clump coming somewhere from the rear end and sounds like something heavy is loose or given up. No obvious cause and in trying to find such I have replaced the rear springs, shockers, anti-roll and radius arm bushes.
So as its MoT is due in a few months and to help me decide its future I paid the village garage MoT man (good experienced bloke) to look under it with a view to corrosion rather than just worn parts. He started front to back and was happy up to rear spring top mounts but beyond that noted that rear body mounts had corroded away and further corrosion seemed to be on cross members in that area. By design it’s difficult to see exactly, as fuel tank stops any direct line of sight. Therefore has anyone worked to restore body mounts and anything else in that area that are prone to corrosion. If so how did you go about it underneath or through the rear floor?

 

[solarman216]

Hi it is a bit worrying if you get such a noise at full droop as this is controlled by the shocks and the spring should be good and tight between the top spring mount and the axle, have you checked the across chassis tube in front of the axle that the tie rods are fitted to, I have seen these break away, as for the rear body mounts they are a bit of a pig to get at but I would not have attributed them to the noise you say, I would be having a good hammer at all of the rear chassis to look for weak points, listen to the sound and if any makes holes then with a toffee hammer keep going till you reach good metal, Rick

 

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Thanks for ides

Hi Rick thanks for you ideas. Will update in due course

 

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Update on Maverick rear bodymount and chassis

Hi All.
I thought an update was in order towards the constant banging from the rear Near Side over potholes and known corroded rear body mount. I am very fortunante to have a colleague with ramp, good knowledge of sheet fabrication and welding. He also likes a challenge. On the ramp I had to remove, exhaust, towbar, petrol tank rear bumper before you could see all the corrosion. The body mount and associated area was no more and you could put your fingers into one side of the chassis about 10" coming from the rear spring mount and cross member that support fuel tank. The spring top mount area had previously been welded and was still 100%.
The Offside area and body mount was still in acceptable condition.
I would have scraped the vehicle as uneconomical to repair but colleague patiently rebuild over a few days after I spent time cutting back the rot to good material also cut hole in rear floor for access. The end result looked excellent, I did have to drill and re-tap many bolt threads as they would not undo so got ground off. All banging noise gone and MoT examiner happy with that area. So I have another year, but sense it will be its last.

 

[solarman216]

Well done mate, just shows they can still be repaired, my 97 Patrol is as good as gold and a 98 T2 previously owned, now a mates is also still going strong, as is my Mrs 3Ltr previously owned by Rayf, Rick