8 hours to remove body from chassis

[Elanconvert]

yes they are bill, but I think they are 'tubes in sockets'.....where soldering would probably do the job!

I used to braze things that shouldn't have been, but I always wanted to produce a fillet, which I found difficult

fred

[Chancer]

yes they are bill, but I think they are 'tubes in sockets'.....where soldering would probably do the job!

I used to braze things that shouldn't have been, but I always wanted to produce a fillet, which I found difficult

fred

Bronze welding is used on Lotus/Caterham7 chassis, the tubes are butted against each other but the ends shaped so that they make full contact, they are bronze welded meaning a fillet of the filler rod material is built up around the joint.

Traditional bicycle frames used a socket capillary brazed joint and no bronze bead is visible, a bit confusing as they used to call them double butted joints but I think that meant that the frame tubes were thicker at the extremities than the section between the joints.

To take the twist out of an accident damaged Caterham chassis you first strap/clamp it to a surface plate then heat up the bronze welded joints especially the diagonal bracing, you need to have a feel for which ones need to be relieved a little and its very rewarding to see the stresses come out, you can almost hear the frame sigh with relief.

As long as there are no gaps between the tubes you just bronze weld them again and it should come off the jig straight and true and remain so.

Try doing that with a welded chassis!!!

[englishmaninwales]

Yes, the current metric Caterham frame is produced in house and is welded but Arch still repair/refurbish older bronze welded frames. While the Arch bronze welded frames are much more a work of art (before powder coat) than the latest Caterham welded frames (I've seen some really messy joints) they claim the welded frame is 15% torsionally stiffer.

[alexblack13]

We raced karts for years and I am sure all the frames were brazed.

Some advantages and disadvantages.. One of the disadvantages was the type of brazing in some of the manufacturers frames work hardened and the frames stiffened up before breaking near the joint. PITA.. Written off chassis!

Others work softened!! .. Then frame (Chassis) quickly 'went off'... Great to start off and one could really adjust the stiffness, then suddenly it didn't matter how you set it up. Just didn't work the same. They were good for the wet though..

Hope you are all good..??

Al '....

[Elanconvert]

well that explains things quite a lot......when doing my welding course, after covering the basics of welding and brazing, I stopped going before the 'advanced' section [for people who were hoping to become professional welders], which presumably covered 'braze welding' - something i've never done, and I can now see that it would work on butted tubes, where ordinary 'brazing' would be next to useless.......
thanks for clearing it up! as the old saying goes, YLSED!

fred

[englishmaninwales]

We raced karts for years and I am sure all the frames were brazed.

Some advantages and disadvantages.. One of the disadvantages was the type of brazing in some of the manufacturers frames work hardened and the frames stiffened up before breaking near the joint. PITA.. Written off chassis!

Others work softened!! .. Then frame (Chassis) quickly 'went off'... Great to start off and one could really adjust the stiffness, then suddenly it didn't matter how you set it up. Just didn't work the same. They were good for the wet though..

Hope you are all good..??

Al '....

Going on from the disadvantages, in a crash the bronze welded joints can tear apart. That's ok if it is away from the seating area....
Malcolm

[rgh0]

- In an Elan don't have to worry of the welds or brazing failing in a crash and releasing the seat. You have all that high strength 45 year old fibreglass and a couple of bobbins to hold the seat in

I must get around to installing those seat mount reinforcing mods soon also !

cheers
Rohan

[billwill]

I'd contemplate explosive bolts, rockets and a parachute, but I can't quite work out how to make the roof of my coupe fly off first. If I pull down the sunvisor it just bends the wire.

[englishmaninwales]

Some military canopy detonating cord would work well on the roof!

[rgh0]

top of rear towers repaired and chassis touch up painting repairs completed, rear shocks and Lotocones replaced and suspension reassembled.

The new TTR Konis replace the old Spax ( one of which was leaking ). Less droop on the Konis so I can take off the droop limiting cables I had installed. The new Lotocones have the top spring mount point machined not as deep as the original ones and the ID for the strut is greater (but the top hat sleeves supplied from TTR took care of that bigger ID)

Due to the less machining on the spring top cap mount point on the Lotocone the strut thread does not go far enough through the Lotocone to fit both the spring washer and the half deep nut supplied by TTR which is different from the original castalleted nut top design for the strut. Could have turned the Lotocone on the lathe to match the original one, but left the spring washer off and used Loctitie instead - just as good and quicker. An interesting exercise in the issues of different suppliers with small mods that add up to it not fitting as intended.

cheers
Rohan

[gehirin]

I'm planning to remove the body off my S4 RHD. I believe I read that there are 16 bolts. Does anyone have a diagram of the location of the bolts. Greatly appreciated! Also do I have to remove the steering column for this?

[gjz30075]

Welcome! Go to www.rdent.com and go to shop manuals. Navigate your way to the body and "attaching" to show where the bolts are.

Don't forget to disconnect the fuel line, steering shaft from the rack, parking brake cable, back up light wires from the switch, grounds, speedo cable. I'm sure there are others that I'm forgetting.

Keep up posted.

Greg Z

[rgh0]

Yes 16 main bolts but quite a few other connections to chassis such as seat belt anchors that need to come off also

The 16 main bolts are:

Inside engine bay
2 bolts in front of rack
2 bolts on inside of front towers

Inside cabin
2 bolts top of tunnel just behind dash
2 bolts in front of rear towers behind seats

Under car
2 on lower flanges at front corners of foot well
2 on lower flanges at front of backbone where Y section starts
2 on lower flanges back bone at rear of cabin
2 at rear of chassis behind diff into boot

The steering column needs to be disconnected at the universal joint at the rack and the clamp that joins the two sections of column removed and then the wheel and column section that goes into the engine bay can be pulled up inside the cabin

cheers
Rohan

[gehirin]

Thanks for the info! Definitely curious how the frames held up since 69. Unfortunately don't know much of previous owner(s) history. Going through some of the wiring...scary. I'm glad to have found this forum. Thanks again

[William2]

Like Rohan I also had a problem with my rear Armstrong dampers not protruding far enough through the Lotocone hole. My solution was to purchase some extra long sleeve nuts from Pat Thomas of Kelvedon Motors.