MOT fail conundrum

[Stew71]

Hi all

Just hoping for a few pointers/opinions. We have a 1997 2.5D Bongo, which we've had since it was imported in 2009. Aside from a few niggles, it's been fine on the whole - we've been lucky I guess. However, yesterday it failed its MOT on a leaking steering rack, and corrosion to one of the sills.

Unfortunately the garage who did the MOT have basically booted it out as they don't have much storage space and in a friendly but not especially helpful way, suggested we buy a new rack and then get it back to them. The van is now on the street - we don't have off-road parking - so I don't want to drive it until I have it booked into a garage for repairs. (Just have to hope no-one sets fire to it or anything between now & then)

There's a garage local to us in Portsmouth which is on the list here (Owl Motors) and I'm thinking I will contact them tomorrow - their website also says they do welding (the list doesn't) so fingers crossed. Perhaps they can even store it once they've had a look, or come out to us and assess the bodywork etc.

I guess as far as the steering rack goes, it's about getting a reconditioned one - looks like they are about £300-odd but you get something back for the old one. Is that generally likely to be a better bet than repairs? The guy in the MOT garage said he didn't think repairing it was worthwhile, but I'm starting to think he's really just looking out for more straightforward jobs. (That garage used to be run by I think his dad or uncle, who seemed to treat every job as a matter of pride, and they once worked on a Volvo of mine for 3 weeks - then only charged me £90 because they couldn't completely fix the problem.)

But what might people recommend in terms of the bodywork? It's had some corrosion appearing for a couple of years (see photos; the filler you can see was applied by my 'current' garage a couple of years ago) and I've been planning to get it sorted. I dimly recall reading that there are certain other brand wheel arches and sills that fit - Land Rover maybe? Are replacements likely to be a better bet than patches? Any bright questions to ask or things to look for?

Thanks for any thoughts/tips/impressions. We're not even sure if we are looking to keep the Bongo longer term - thinking of moving to something with a bit more room perhaps - but it probably makes sense to get it in as good shape as we reasonably can.