Replacement chassis: how long might it last?

[Grizzly]

pereirac, Yes they look bad but that is easily repairable. I can only assume you've never done a Restoration on a steel bodied late 60's early 70's car if you think that's bad.

Still puzzles me why some one would replace a chassis for such and easy repair? The way i see it ?1000 for a new chassis gets quite allot of Welding/Shotblasting/Galv or Powder coating etc.

Just Close the top of the uprights and weld the drain holes up

[billwill]

Screen Shot 2016-02-20 at 15.19.15.png

The holes at the bottom of the suspension turrets should not be as big as these!!

Carl

Snap!



But provided that the vertical corners are not distorted, the geometry should still be ok so it can be repaired.

And this link shows how to do it:
http://www.datahighways.co.uk/photos/og ... repair.htm

[Chancer]

pereirac, Yes they look bad but that is easily repairable. I can only assume you've never done a Restoration on a steel bodied late 60's early 70's car if you think that's bad.

Still puzzles me why some one would replace a chassis for such and easy repair? The way i see it ?1000 for a new chassis gets quite allot of Welding/Shotblasting/Galv or Powder coating etc.

Absolutely but I think that a new chassis is a lot more than that, even having a new front cross-member and turrets spliced costs more I believe.

My chassis was patched back in the day, not very well and I'm sure is hiding far worse corrosion than the photos, its in storage so not being driven but I fully intend to give it my best shot at removing the patches and doing a proper structural and hopefully invisible repair.

[Grizzly]

Absolutely but I think that a new chassis is a lot more than that, even having a new front cross-member and turrets spliced costs more I believe.

Well as an example going back to the late 90's now a good friend had a chassis that had perforated the vac tank reconditioned by Spyder (came back Shot blasted and powder coated) for ?600. I was under the impression from Chris Neils that Lotus recon chassis for people too but i never saw one done and again that was before Chris Neil Moved (so must be in the 80's)

There is nothing shockingly difficult to it anyway, a decent fab guy will make any repair section you want there is nothing difficult to a plate chassis and if its done properly you won't be able to tell its been done, it only gets silly when you have a tube chassis with no corrosion protection inside the tubes (Cough... TVR)

Going back to this thread, lotus-chassis-f36/sows-ear-chassis-t24752.html that's an Easy repair with the Chassis out (In my opinion there is about ?200 max of welding there with the chassis off the car like that so you can put it on a bench, you could add a pair of Uprights that could well be ?200 each and ?300 of Shot-blasting / powder coating and still be under ?1000)

I believe only Bent or badly repaired Chassis's should be scrapped but then i restore Classic cars for a living and it's a given that you keep as much of the original car as possible.

[pereirac]

It was quite a few years ago in the 1980s and the cost of a replacement chassis was about ?275. The 'wisdom' in those days was 'replace the chassis'if it's start to rust in the front towers. It was a good excuse to replace other parts as well. Peter Day was my local parts supplier which probably explains all and he was a bit of a perfectionist!!
These days a lot of the parts I replaced would have ended up on Ebay and have sold for a small fortune... side indicator lamps, front wishbones etc... Old chassis ended up in a skip as it was before Spyder used to refurbish them ...

Those were the days ..

I can only assume you've never done a Restoration on a steel bodied late 60's early 70's car if you think that's bad.

That explains why I still have the Elan, I have kept well away from metal cars from that period as I never learnt how to weld. Not quite true as I had a 1974 MGBGT but the previous owner did all the welding ...

Carl

[Grizzly]

Just for a Laugh (while we're on the subject) i found a 1979 Chris Neil price list in my paperwork. Just wish Rotoflex Couplings where still ?7.90 and i wounder what the POA was on a complete rolling chassis

O and you might like a couple of add's from 1980 Thouroughbread & Classic Cars magazine (for those who haven't see September 1976 there is a great Elan and Colin Chapman write up)

[pereirac]

You can't buy an E-Type for the cost of an Elan these days .. Elans must really be undervalued?

Carl

[Grizzly]

I've just spent the last hour reading old copies and there was one add that kinda stood out in the 1980 edition

I'm suddenly feeling very old......... was 1980 that long ago?

Even back in 1980 a nice E-type was three or four times the price of a nice Elan.

I was just thinking about Elans / Chassis, if a Chassis was ?250 +vat in 1980 and a nice S4 coupe was ?2k that's an eighth of the total value of the car before labor, at least today a ?1600 chassis is more like a twelfth of the cars total value (assuming a nice S4 coupe would be about ?20k)

[The Veg]

1975 Lincoln Continental

[Grizzly]

1975 Lincoln Continental

Yeh one ex London Gangster owner

The Mk1 Cooper S for ?550 was the one i was pointing out