In the E36, especially in the sedan, touring and compact models built between 1994 and 1996, the jack mounts are a known weak point and are often only visible from the outside when they are through. The real damage can only be seen, however, if you take the effort and remove the damaged sheet metal and then see that this is only the tip of the iceberg and the damage is far greater than initially assumed. The reason for this is, as already shown and described in the other article on the more complex restoration “BMW touring /// M flight”, the missing or insufficient cavity preservation. The “welding plates” offered on Ebay, which are “seared” on the damaged areas of the jack mount, are therefore not recommended, at least if you intend to keep the good piece for more years, as the inner stiffening structure is already badly damaged. In the following illustrated book, a less complex variant of this repair of the jack support on a limousine is shown, which is particularly suitable for vehicles with rocker panels.

Here you can see the lower end of the B pillar. As you can see, this is already completely rusted at the bottom and no longer had a connection to the sill.

The inner sill to the interior was, as you can see, already rusted through and you could see the carpet and the wiring harness that runs behind it …

As you can see from the severed sheet metal, the whole extent behind it could not be guessed from the outside … so much for the topic “the sills don’t look that bad …!”

Of course, all of this has to be repaired in order to continue to guarantee the rigidity of the body …

I always use a rust protection primer with metal parts that I apply to the surfaces before I weld the sheets. The advantage is that all of the sheets behind are sealed with rust protection and you can weld on them directly so that the sheets behind them remain sealed with rust protection even after welding.

You should always buy a complete sill as a repair sheet metal. You can cut it as you need it and use it completely. However, you should be careful not to take the cheap scrap, but take the ones with the pre-punched holes for the jack mount.

              Then the jack holes fit and you don’t have to correct or file, you save time and trouble and you shouldn’t pay attention to the few euros!