Expert: William Forster - 1/28/2009

Question
ON MY 2008 HONDA CIVIC EX 4 DR. SEDAN CAN THE RT. LOWER FRONT FRAME RAIL BE SECTIONED AND HOW IS IT DONE?

Answer
Hello! Yes, it can. The dealership can access Honda sectioning procedures to properly section the rail. One nice thing about sectioning is you reduce the risk of causing a fire in the passenger compartment. (a complete rail continues to roughly about where the front seat tracks bolt in) There's truckloads of sealant, paint, undercoat, and sound deadening pads- sometimes foam is injected into cavities. I remember a guy putting a full rail into a Sable, and had to have a helper with  a CO2 extinguisher inside the car putting out small fires every time he made a weld. So, sectioning is best in almost all but the most extreme cases. I'll give you a basic sectioning procedure, but not necessarily the one for your particular car- now, most rails are a long, rectangular box. You cut the rail off in a very specific location. Then, you use a 3 inch long piece of the leftover new section, shrink it down a bit, and slide it into the frame rail. It's a sleeve the new rail will slide onto it with a very tight fit. It's then plug welded- Basically, you drill 3/8 holes in the existing frame rail, all around it, a couple inches apart, slide in the sleeve, and plug weld the sleeve in through the 3/8 holes that were drilled into the existing rail. The new rail has 3/8 holes drilled into it at the sleeve area also, then is carefully slid onto the sleeve, and butted up against the old rail. A small gap is left between the rail- maybe 1/16. The plug welds are done in the new rail to attach it to the sleeve, then The rail is welded (with inch long stitch welds) completely around the rail, until it becomes 1 continuous weld. The aforementioned gap insures that the welds penetrate to the sleeve, and the rails are welded to each other, and the sleeve. During welding, the technician bounces around to avoid overheating. Sound nice and strong? It is! The factory releases very specific locations for sections so you avoid accidentally over strengthening collapse zones. Everything is then cleaned, painted, and undercoated before final assembly. Good as new!