More Chassis Fun

Odds and sods this week as I’m finishing up the bits needed before I can get the floor panels in.

Front belly pan out of the rust treatment bath and it looks pretty solid. There are a few pin holes in it that I need to weld shut at some point, but I’ve put some zinc primer on it for now.

Finished up the chassis repair that was holding me back from getting the final 2 outriggers in. 

Epoxy mastic on the inside:

Welded shut:

And a coat of zinc primer on it.It looks miles better than what was there (note that it might look a bit short at the back, but its the other piece which is too large; you can see a nice patch straight over another rusty section. I’ll come back to do this). I’ve also epoxy mastic’d the chassis section where the outriggers will sit as I’ve done with the others. So I should be able to weld the outriggers in this week.

Made up a replacement tab for the clutch cable guide tube. The previous one had snapped off, and it was easier and better to make a new one (sorry about the blurriness!):

And finally I’ve got the RH floor pan trial fitted, and the in-fill piece to take it up to the side panel. 

Next week’s job; drill a ton of holes in the floor panel ready for plug welding to the floor supports and sills, and weld the in-fill piece onto it. I made a start just before I left today.

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Rear Chassis repair

I’ve pretty much finished this repair panel now, I’ll probably spend a bit longer on it to get the front to fit slightly better:

While the paint on the inside of the repair dries I decided to give the front pedal belly pan a bit of attention. 

Before:

After an overnight soak in a bath of Deox-C (it didn’t quite fit in the plastic box I had, but this shows how good the stuff is!). This should be useable once I’ve finished cleaning it up, patched a few pinholes and given it a coat of paint.

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O/S Front outrigger in and further chassis repairs

Today saw the front O/S outrigger go in:

Both front outriggers are in now. Looking good!

Before the middle and rear O/S outriggers can go in I need to repair the chassis section that they attach to (someone has repaired this in the past but it needs fixing again).

Marked up and rot chopped out (you can see the rear of the repair I made earlier to the other side of this section – I’ll get some rust treatment and epoxy mastic in there while I’ve got good access):

And I’ve started fabbing a repair section for it. This largely consists of beating the crap out of a piece of steel with a large hammer and vice to get the bends in the right position:

I’ve got the basic shape and just need to cut it down to size now:

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O/S Rear Torsion bar chassis repair – part 2

jamesley:

I managed to get this repair welded in tonight. Clamped in place:

And welded in place. The welds were a little splattery around the torsion bar and blew through in one or two places as the metal was getting quite thin, but it should do the job. I cleaned up the welds a little after this too. The weld around the torsion bar will get covered with the circular cover plate I need to fabricate. I’ll come back to that once I’ve repaired the other side and got the outriggers in.

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O/S Rear Torsion bar chassis repair – part 1

A little from this evening’s effort to fabricate a repair for this area. 

Rot and previous rubbish welding chopped out:

Repair panel made up. What a pig to do! The combination of a curved section and slight bend to the panel made this quite tricky to get right. There is also a dip in the panel on one side as it approaches the torsion bar. For that bit I had to weld an extra piece to the panel (I could’ve made the panel bigger and just bent it, but I’d already cut it down to size).Should do the job.

Trial fitted to the chassis, 

Heres the dipped section (sorry about the image quality). It’s not a perfect match for the original but should be a neat repair:

Got some paint on it tonight so should be able to mastic it tomorrow night and weld in Friday. Hoping to get the O/S outriggers in soon once these repairs are done. 

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N/S inner sill and jacking points in

A bit more from this week.

Drilled and prepped the jacking points and inner sill (used my new air punch for the holes; a great time saver!)

Lots of clamps to hold everything in place:

And weld away:

End result. All N/S jacking points plug welded to the top hats and chassis, seam welded to the cross members, and inner sill welded to top hats:

I’ve also bent and fitted a new N/S brake cable guide tube (the old one snapped in half when I removed the rear outrigger). The replacement is stainless steel so shouldn’t rust out. I got the guys at my local metal fabricators (Elite Fabrication & Welding) to flange the end of the tube when I picked it up so it looks just like the factory tube.

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