Front chassis uprights

[richard sprint]

Thank's to all for their posts and the variety of methods.

I've now got the chassis onto a twirler and have enlarged the drain holes by roughly 50% using an air powered dremel with some very effective small 'bits' that I use for grinding down welds.

I've shot blast the inside and will apply a couple of coats POR 15, have made a card board template from which to form a simple metal cover which I will attach by a couple of quarter inch bolts (through to a nut welded on outside of the opposing solid side) and spacers welded to the cover so the inside can be accessed at will.

The cover will not be air tight as will sit proud on the edge of the weld, the POR 15 should provide a strong enough protective finish to stop any rusting where the cover and weld adjoin.

[ttaunton]

When I fitted a new chassis to my 1968 S3 in about 1978, I bought a Lotus replacement. I couldn't afford the galvanised one so opted for a primer finish. The previous chassis had succumbed when a front tower collapsed due to rust. The whole arrangement of the tower, the open top, the drain holes etc, just struck me as ridiculous and a very flawed piece of design: a ticking time bomb as you know it'll rust through one day, and until it does you'll worry about it.
Consequently I closed up the towers on the new chassis by Sifbronzing closing plates over the apertures and closed up the drain holes with more Sifbronze. Sifbronze (Nickel Bronze welding) is brilliant for this kind of thing. I painted the chassis with Hammerite. I removed the chassis last year and treated myself to a Spyder chassis. The original (modified)chassis front end was perfect after 30 years. I just could never see the benefits of having those towers open to the weather.
Tony Taunton

[freddy22112211]

Tony,
Silly question - if the chassis was perfect, why did you change it?
Gordon

[andyelan]

Hi everyone

Before people start talking about flawed design I think it's necessary to ask what criteria were applied at the design stage. Do people really expect that a car chassis designed by a commercial motor manufacturer should have been designed to last forever?

My understanding was, the Elan was actually intended to last about 10 years or 100,000 miles. If thats the case, my car which is still on it's originally chassis after 35 years, really demonstrates the chassis is about 3 times over engineered

Of course, it's now common place for comsumer products, including cars, to be designed for a finite service life, but back in the sixties this idea would have been fairly uncommon. The people who would have understood the principle very well, however, would have been those, like Lotus, who applied racing car/Formular 1 principles to their road cars (Out of interest, I wonder how well built contemporary Ferrari's were as far as longevity was concerned).

For me, the beauty of Lotus is that you have a car that's based on contemporary Formular 1 racing technology. If you really want somthing that good and tough, and will survive with minimun maintainance, get a Austin Healy 3000. That's based on lorry technology.

Andy

[gerrym]

Andy, your logic may be a bit flawed??

Are you suggesting that the Chassis designers deliberately left the towers open so that they would rust...so that rust would kill the lightweight chassis design before it sucommed to fatigue failure?

If so, how did they expect the corrosion rate to be controlled (too many variables including type of mud/dirt, days dry/wet, salinity.

Regards

Gerry

[andyelan]

Hi Everyone

No Gerry I'm not suggesting designers left the box sections open to allow the chassis to corrode at a controled rate.

If I'd have been a design engineer in the mid sixties, I'd have left the tops open to avoid a problem with condensation and to at least allow an attempt at getting some paint in there, which would be impossible if they were enclosed. Rember, any paint applied befor fabrication would be burnt off by the welding process and wax injection hadn't been invented when these chassis were designed. I'd have put drain holes in the bottom to let any water out and wouldn't have given much thought about mud blocking them up, a note in the owners manule would have taken care of that. As far as lifing went, I would have simply looked, at a contemporary car with a similar fabricated structure, a Mini subframe most likley, and if, based on design, metal thickness etc, I estimated my chassis would last as long as that, I'd be happy.

I reallise all this sounds a bit gash, but you can't apply 21 Century expections to mid sixties design. I remember when a car which had gone "round the clock" (100,000 miles) was big news, now that's just the norm'

Regards
Andy

[Elanintheforest]

Elans, if anything, lasted better than many of their contemporaries, at least here in the UK. Here?s a few examples.

I had a Mk 2 Lotus Cortina in 74, when it was 4 years old?rust has started to get hold of the wings, front and rear. A mate had a later car, and that needed front wings, outer sills and rear arches replacing before it was 5 years old.

I lived in big house in Bristol broken up into lots of flats?for some reason, the house attracted petrolheads. Between us we had an E Type, a Mk 2 Jag, a TR5, a Cooper S, a Mk 1 Lotus Cortina, a Healey 3000 and, by then, I had my Elan. I was there 18 months, and in that time, the E Type, Cooper S, Lotus Cortina and Healey went to the scrapyard with terminal rust. The Jag and the Healey were both 10 years old, the Lotus Cortina 9 years old and the Cooper S 8 years old. Each of them were bought for ?300 or so, and were definitely in the banger category! Nobody cared about the Cortina or Cooper S going, but we all turned up at the yard to see the Healey and E Type given their last rites!

This was in 1975, and my S3 was my new pride and joy, and even at 8 years old, it had much more negative camber on one side than the other. The chassis was duly repaired, every year, until I could afford to take it off the road for a new chassis. The guys laughed when I first came back with my pride and joy, saying all the normal stuff about Lotus and how I should buy a ?proper car?. But the Elan gave both the E Type guy and Healey guy a lift back home from the scrapyard, and it?s still here today.

So the Elan chassis didn?t last any longer than it?s contemporaries, but it was a cheap and easy fix to get rid of all the rust from the car. Nowadays, a replacement chassis costs ?1500 or so, but to rid a rotten Healey or E Type of it?s rust is closer to ?20k, or even ?30k.

I?ve never worried about the chassis on Elans. They are so easy to replace, and if you use the car, and use it hard, they will probably crack before they rust?and that includes the Spyder chassis. Really, if you have to spend ?1500 every 10 years or so on a chassis, and that?s if your doing 10k miles a year, then it?s pretty cheap motoring. And replacing it is a great opportunity to overhaul the suspension, steering and brakes at the same time. And the best part...an idiot like me can do a chassis change on an Elan, whilst it takes real metalworking skill and expertise to get a metal car right.

Mark

[hatman]

In any case, wasn't the chassis merely a cobbled-together device to enable the engine and running gear to be tested while the bodywork, moulds etc were being finalised with, obviously, no consideration given to longevity or otherwise? The fact that it worked, was extremely stiff and, possibly more importantly, dirt-cheap to make ensured that it was adopted as the way forward for all Loti for the next 30 odd years.

[richard sprint]

Interesting posts and I would give my right arm for the Etype, Lotus Cortina and Cooper S!

My outcome to this with much help from Brian Clarke on this and other matters has been to enlarge the drainage holes by approx 50%, leave them open for ventilation and thoroughly apply two coats of POR 15 (after shot blasting) and using a mirror and bent brushes to get back into the recess.

Feels like the POR will provide adequate protection it seems an incredible product and observation/cleaning out should do the job - and these days they are not going to face salty winter use on a day to day basis - I feel satisfied that many years from now this chassis will still be holding up - time will tell...

[alan71]

I fitted Lotus galvanized chassis 19 years ago. In that time there were periods when it was my main car and several years when it lived in a very damp garage. It only does a low mileage now but I still use it all year round and the chassis is as good as new.
It pays to watch the MOT man when he?s jacking up the back end.
I?ve since heard of chassis distorting when galvanizing, I know Tony Thompson doesn?t recommend it.
There are a lot of things to consider when choosing a new chassis but to me not having to worry about rust (combined with GRP body) is a huge bonus.

Alan.

[billwill]

This was the thread where I described the repair of my front turrets last year, which had rusted paper thin, but not actually collapsed, so the geometry was still OK.


viewtopic.php?p=85841#85841

And this was the discussion before the repair.
elan-f14/rusty-chassis-t16513.html