a request for you Marty, when you get to doing the outer sills, can you take some shots and explain how you gap the sill properly?
I'm interested how to work out its location, given that the inner sill is probably out as well, or at least just jigged in place. I expect since we are on the spit the body should be braced around the door opening, but to do that hand still have the doorframe and possibly door on in order to set the sill height is goign to be tricky.
 
I get the rear of the sill has its height set by the upward return swoop of the door opening, and the door height is matched by the hip swage line, but with a dodgy firewall plus non adjustable welded hinges it looks like much needs to be sill and front guard gets 'built' to suit the door itself, which means you really ned to have the door fitted....
 
anyhow, lots of pics would be greatly appreciated.....

Hi Deano
If I can find pics of my mk1 van where the floor, inner sill, outer sill and possibly the hinge support cover was all chopped away for new and made parts . And yes the door needs to be on several times (I used long bolts instead of pins) obviously empty the door out first. The guard doesn't need to fitted unless your really butchering back the steel..

I got to attacking the sills this weekend ,. Well most of Sunday... From the pics I showed previously only 1 sill is bad between the guard and jacking point mainly from the factory stainless brightwork covering the sills . Since the price to import them is out of control, I made a section about 700mm long, however it's only from the flat visible to the weld points at the floor. So the part from the door seal to the outer edge still remains ion the car as mine was still in good order.
Reason why I didn't use mk2 sills is they are very wrong , spose I will save them for a mk2 or sell them on ... If I tried hard I could get them fitted but was quicker to make the part I needed. The reason for 700mm is the usable length of my folder lol. I do have pics of what I did so far

A lot of repairs on my mk1 van some 8yrs ago.
The doors were fitted numerous times before it all lines up.

Here's another pic of further repairs where I used a back door to fix a nasty dent on the same car..




Marty from the future here, look closely at the arch where it meets the van arch, the sedan sill to arch is longer than van... It's actually the van rear arch is wider than sedan so if you get the new arches they will need cutting longer or make the wheel well as sedan . I'm yet to see it the other way around, van rear arches on a coup !!


I also fitted a new set of rear arches but slightly widened and raised them.

^^ so your outer and inner sill are both chopped, and the tunnel looks pretty religious as well.
I guess there's less issue of stressing the floor or the shell sagging as the rotisserie is fixed on the bulkhead?.
And your brace is to set the width position of the sill, because the floor pan is still being tacked.
 
Funny about 700mm panels, my home made inner sill is the same, for same reason!
Nice repurpose of the door skin too.
 

Hey Deano, some more pics of the van sill install . The van exposed some graphic rust situations that did question my ability and whether to continue with the project, luckily I toughed it thru and have a prime example from it..



The pic below shows the strengthener plate which runs 3/4 along the sill, mine was so brittle I replaced it with a 2.5mm galvd truss cut to match but ran it further forwards about 6in more.

So back to mk1 coup, the front of the floors was pretty badly rotted away so I repaired the front piece up to the wheel house bulge.



The lower front floors were replaced up to the first rib


Both floors were very similarly rusty and the same template was used for each side !


Welds smoothed out. Must say the floors looks worse on camera, after some wire wheeling they came up smooth and shiny so I hit them with primer sealer

Here's a inner sill piece with matching step folds and half roll to replicate original item


Cleaned welds as usual to make it look as near as original as possible

Floor and inner sills just about did , next is the outer sills.. Cut the mess away and see what's inside


First thing I did was measure length to make the panel go as far as possible, then work out the the lengths to the folds and make a test piece but before doing any folds I put the piece thru the roller to get the correct curve, rule of thumb, make the new piece longer and wider than what's needed, here's a test piece..

Here it is up against the old sill panel ,


It was a pretty close fit with fold angles etc so I cut a length of new flat metal and got to bending up a new part

Here is the the new piece with a notch for the jacking anchor, doing this was a bit tricky but once worked it out it was easy..
So this is at about where I'm at so far to date , I have cut and folded other parts but will update more soon. I'm hoping to get enough done to spray primer on instead of brushing it on..

There was a piece near the back arch that needed attention, this wasn't as big or involved as the front still piece , it was getting the light curve to match and the angle . This was Saturdays job and I did want to get a bit further along into making more pieces but it getting cold in the late arvo so I decided it was smoko for the day.
This is removed piece

The hole it left behind

New piece test fitting


.. And here's a reminder for myself next week..



The front part of the sill welded into place

My welder was acting up on some occasions, I put it down to the feed roller not tight enough , I don't like having them too tight as sometimes a proper bird's-nest can happen, I prefer some slip Incase the wire gets stuck there's that release or slip to save a bunch of wire and time sorting the mess..

^^^thats a money shot of the sills. 
I was confused for a while looking at my pile of rusty bits, and thought a non existent inner sill was missing, but it's just the way the outer sill rolls over and meets the floorpan. It goes over and you weld it to the floorpan flush, and only stands upright towards the rear wheelarch.
Dont worry I know what I mean. :)
Totally different to a Capri sill, which has the 'rail' all way along.
 
Good progress Marty.
You'd be in lockdown now if you lived on the correct side of the border with us Vics..