Rusted Outriggers - Any advice?

Rusted Outriggers - Any advice?

Author
Discussion

ratazzi

Original Poster:

51 posts

218 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
All,

After over 10 years, this years MOT was a little bit of a struggle as some welding was required as a short term fix. The outriggers have almost rusted through.

Has anyone has any experience of replacement outriggers? I have done some digging and a company called Sportmotive is highly recommended?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Mark

Dodsy

7,172 posts

226 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
Not used them but I have heard great things about RT racing so thats probably where I'd be spending my money.

portzi

2,296 posts

174 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
ratazzi said:
All,

After over 10 years, this years MOT was a little bit of a struggle as some welding was required as a short term fix. The outriggers have almost rusted through.

Has anyone has any experience of replacement outriggers? I have done some digging and a company called Sportmotive is highly recommended?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Mark
Theres 2 trains of though here.

1. the outriggers will cost you in the region of £1800, for a body off fitment, or £1500 with the body insitu, so no brainer its a body of job to be done correctly. Or I would get the the steel tube and plates and fit them yourself, it would be no different to a garage doing them insitu, other than they have car lifts making the job alot easier, and with the money your save you could have a nice MIG welder.

2. go the whole hog and get the whole chassis done, would cost alot more obviously, but your safe in the fact that it will never need looking at again for at least 15 years, if the car is a keeper. If shes not a keeper go for repair outriggers yourself.

alex_gray255

6,313 posts

204 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
Could zinc coat them once done as well as that would make it last longer.

jamienshelly

1,826 posts

137 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
This area can be a mine-field, I have very recently done my own outriggers without a body lift and it is a pain. I bought the materials and also made them, which was also a pain but the upside was the metal cost me a grand total of £23 and i used the lifts and mig at my work and it took around 8-10 hours (in 2 stages). I wish I could have just sent it away and had the body removed, all the bushes done, new outriggers (hot zinced and powder coated) and any other work that needed doing, but i use the car daily and the cost was a big issue too. It is all budget dependant, you can buy new ones for £600 on the bay and fit them yourself, you can get the same job done by someone else for around £1500, or you can get the body lifted and a complete outriggger replacement, and any other things done whilst the body is off for a larger sum, bearing in mind after the outriggers are done, what other jobs may need doing in a couple or 5 years time that may have been done or made a lot easier with the body off. the cost can increase greatly.
Ultimately the choice is yours, but go with your budget and common sense. I think Southways have a good reputation as do a lot of other specialists. Neil Garner may be worth a ring.

shake n bake

2,221 posts

206 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
Ah I see the drama hunters have already landed.
There is no need to lift the body for outriggers, there is also no need to pay huge amounts of money either. Shop around engineering shops, race car prep shops and you'll save yourself a fortune for a very good job if you wish. I did and have outrigger where you can barely see the weld, looks great and the rest of my chassis is in great nick.

Alexc1984

86 posts

149 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
I recently went through this dilemma and had a good quote from a garage to do the outriggers but decided to get the full chassis done at Neil Garner in the end as I didn't want to spend money on outriggers then have the full job done a couple years down the line which makes the outriggers added money that wasn't necessary. My chassis ended up being uneconomical to repair due to the main rails being corroded even though it looked good from underneath. I've got a new chassis being assembled now which means I've set the standard now and have to pay up got anything else that is looking hard up replaced. It gets pretty pricey so I'd suggest getting your chassis looked at with a borroscope before paying for outriggers.

davelittlewood

306 posts

132 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
Mine were done just before I bought it.

In the space of 4 years the paint has flaked off and started to rust.

The top of the outriggers were welded from underneath by cutting out a hole in the bottom of the tube to get access to the top of the tube.
This might look good in the short term but it's impossible to clean and paint the top surface of the weld, hence crap.

The only way is to get the body off, even if it's only lifted by a foot or so to gain access to the top of the new welds to prep and paint.

When mine needs a full refurb it's off to R T Racing in Sheffield.

As a Professional Engineer I've spent almost 20 years designing and inspecting welded components for power generation. The welding I saw at RT was top quality.

The bigger issue for me is two pack epoxy or powder coat?

Pupp

12,205 posts

271 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
The more I think about this outrigger palaver, the more I can't help concluding the real answer lies in coming up with some sort of detachable arrangement rather than a welded repair. Assuming the majority of the length of the lateral tubes remains sound, there must be scope to internally sleeve/beef up such that they could receive 'socket' like ends on a pre-fabricated outrigger that could be secured by through bolts or maybe something cleverer/neater. I appreciate the converging angles mean one of the lateral ties would need to be able to pivot or demount but that's not impossible to achieve. The thing could even be made in stainless or a composite... all it does is provide marginal side impact protection and anchor a seat belt (other end in fibreglass) after all.

ChimpOnGas

9,637 posts

178 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
davelittlewood said:
The bigger issue for me is two pack epoxy or powder coat?
A two part epoxy wet paint system beats powder coat every time and by a country mile, I don't care what anyone says about how good their powder coat process is, it can't and wont hold a candle to any epoxy paint.

And the more flexible high solids epoxy mastics available now are even better for high impact areas, indeed an epoxy mastic is the perfect coating for a TVR chassis.

As with any coating process correct preparation is key, to this end very little beats dry media blasting, followed by zinc (hot dip or sprayed), followed by a mordant solution, followed by an acid etch primer, followed by epoxy mastic.

Powder coat does not chemically bond with the substrate, it wraps it which means it will chip. And because powder coat is a wrap, once its breached the writing is on the wall. Water is allowed underneath the coating so corrosion and further powder coat failure is inevitable.

There's a lot of hype around how good powder coat is and it's always the powder coaters peddling the myths.

The truth about powder coat is its favored more for its ease of application, equipment cost and good profit margins, rather than for its genuine durability.

Epoxy mastic every time, powder coat... never... nono





Chuffmeister

3,597 posts

136 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
As you are London based, you could pop down to Dan Taylor at TaylorTVR in Kent. He has new outriggers zinc and mastic coated for a pretty much hassle-free permanent fix. Don't go with the powder coat. Once the powder coat is pierced, you are back to square one.

Twistygit

800 posts

152 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
ChimpOnGas said:
davelittlewood said:
The bigger issue for me is two pack epoxy or powder coat?
A two part epoxy wet paint system beats powder coat every time and by a country mile, I don't care what anyone says about how good their powder coat process is, it can't and wont hold a candle to any epoxy paint.

And the more flexible high solids epoxy mastics available now are even better for high impact areas, indeed an epoxy mastic is the perfect coating for a TVR chassis.

As with any coating process correct preparation is key, to this end very little beats dry media blasting, followed by zinc (hot dip or sprayed), followed by a mordant solution, followed by an acid etch primer, followed by epoxy mastic.

Powder coat does not chemically bond with the substrate, it wraps it which means it will chip. And because powder coat is a wrap, once its breached the writing is on the wall. Water is allowed underneath the coating so corrosion and further powder coat failure is inevitable.

There's a lot of hype around how good powder coat is and it's always the powder coaters peddling the myths.

The truth about powder coat is its favored more for its ease of application, equipment cost and good profit margins, rather than for its genuine durability.

Epoxy mastic every time, powder coat... never... nono

chimp, can you just go ove
r your process a little slower for the normal people please? and the epoxy do you spray that?
whats all the coats for can the epoxy not go straight onto the zinc or what about onto bare metal?
Edited by Twistygit on Friday 31st October 00:07

Milky400

1,960 posts

177 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
Techniques Motorsport/Morgan in stotfold close to Baldock were very reasonable when I had a Chim and enquiried. Mine didn't need doing but was interested in knowing cost etc.

davelittlewood

306 posts

132 months

Thursday 30th October 2014
quotequote all
Twistygit said:
ChimpOnGas said:
davelittlewood said:
The bigger issue for me is two pack epoxy or powder coat?
A two part epoxy wet paint system beats powder coat every time and by a country mile, I don't care what anyone says about how good their powder coat process is, it can't and wont hold a candle to any epoxy paint.

And the more flexible high solids epoxy mastics available now are even better for high impact areas, indeed an epoxy mastic is the perfect coating for a TVR chassis.

As with any coating process correct preparation is key, to this end very little beats dry media blasting, followed by zinc (hot dip or sprayed), followed by a mordant solution, followed by an acid etch primer, followed by epoxy mastic.

Powder coat does not chemically bond with the substrate, it wraps it which means it will chip. And because powder coat is a wrap, once its breached the writing is on the wall. Water is allowed underneath the coating so corrosion and further powder coat failure is inevitable.

There's a lot of hype around how good powder coat is and it's always the powder coaters peddling the myths.

The truth about powder coat is its favored more for its ease of application, equipment cost and good profit margins, rather than for its genuine durability.

Epoxy mastic every time, powder coat... never... nono

chimp, can you just go ove
r your process a little slower for the normal people please? and the epoxy do you spray that?
Yes, I'm thinking the same thing.

I had my wishbones blasted and then powder coated in Coventry. Now wish I'd used epoxy paint.

I'll be buying some for the front end chassis clean up, probably the stuff from rust.co.uk

italian job

246 posts

230 months

Friday 31st October 2014
quotequote all
Lots of choice where outriggers are concerned. I wanted the job done properly but don't have an unlimited budget. I chose to do a full body lift and then fully strip the chassis myself. RT racing are fairly local to me,they have a good reputation and proper chassis jigs. They can also work to real world budgets. I had my chassis blasted locally prior to taking it to RT on the back of a borrowed trailer,they welded new outriggers in to a much higher standard than I could have managed,they also checked all my wishbones were true in their jig FOC.
I then had my chassis and all suspension components blasted locally again,zink phosphate coated then powder coated. Cost of the finished article less than £1500. I have applied additional protection to the hidden areas of the outriggers. I have now replaced the body and everything lined up nicely.

zed4

7,248 posts

221 months

Friday 31st October 2014
quotequote all
Speak to Southways in Fareham. They're very reasonably priced for this sort of work and they do it all the time.

I recommend thermal spraying (metallisation) the new outriggers and then painting them with epoxy mastic. I think that's the best protection.

portzi

2,296 posts

174 months

Friday 31st October 2014
quotequote all
Pupp said:
The more I think about this outrigger palaver, the more I can't help concluding the real answer lies in coming up with some sort of detachable arrangement rather than a welded repair. Assuming the majority of the length of the lateral tubes remains sound, there must be scope to internally sleeve/beef up such that they could receive 'socket' like ends on a pre-fabricated outrigger that could be secured by through bolts or maybe something cleverer/neater. I appreciate the converging angles mean one of the lateral ties would need to be able to pivot or demount but that's not impossible to achieve. The thing could even be made in stainless or a composite... all it does is provide marginal side impact protection and anchor a seat belt (other end in fibreglass) after all.
I think if you start going down this avenue of thought, for a bespoke item it would be expensive to have designed and manufactured by any TVR or chassis related company. Most TVR owners struggle to justify spending nearly 2k on afew strips of tube and 3 mm plate welded and painted. If you can do this yourself its a great idea. I would certainly have a go at it myself if l had a 2 post lift. I designed and manufactured my own camber adjustment system on my top wishbones but without a local tvr specialist help the project would have never been completed.

portzi

2,296 posts

174 months

Friday 31st October 2014
quotequote all
Pupp said:
The more I think about this outrigger palaver, the more I can't help concluding the real answer lies in coming up with some sort of detachable arrangement rather than a welded repair. Assuming the majority of the length of the lateral tubes remains sound, there must be scope to internally sleeve/beef up such that they could receive 'socket' like ends on a pre-fabricated outrigger that could be secured by through bolts or maybe something cleverer/neater. I appreciate the converging angles mean one of the lateral ties would need to be able to pivot or demount but that's not impossible to achieve. The thing could even be made in stainless or a composite... all it does is provide marginal side impact protection and anchor a seat belt (other end in fibreglass) after all.
I think if you start going down this avenue of thought, for a bespoke item it would be expensive to have designed and manufactured by any TVR or chassis related company. Most TVR owners struggle to justify spending nearly 2k on afew strips of tube and 3 mm plate welded and painted. If you can do this yourself its a great idea. I would certainly have a go at it myself if l had a 2 post lift. I designed and manufactured my own camber adjustment system on my top wishbones but without a local tvr specialist help the project would have never been completed.

vaurien

339 posts

148 months

Friday 31st October 2014
quotequote all
steel...steel hot-dip galvanized......stainless steel......chassis....outrigger......




















like you wish.......


Regards

Gregor

Edited by vaurien on Friday 31st October 17:17

davelittlewood

306 posts

132 months

Friday 31st October 2014
quotequote all
Looks good, where is this?