Outriggers

[Lesliehedley]

Bearing in mind that our outriggers are prone to rust and the wedge chassis has a fair bit of flex in it, has anyone considered whether it is possible to make outriggers from carbon fibre? Would it be possible to connect them to the steel chassis and would they help to stiffen the chassis? It's just a thought that occurred to me and I wondered if anyone had already looked into it. I guess it would be very expensive if it was possible but it would solve the rust problem.

[Skyedriver]

THink they would need to be triangulated into the chassis to be of any gain
Outriggers as they stand are just a cantilever off the main central backbone

[mrzigazaga]

Personally i think that removable sills would be better...Allowing an annual inspection of them would be such an advantage, This is something I'm going to consider...Ziga

[adam quantrill]

I was thinking stainless would be better and join them onto the tubes coming out of the backbone (where they remain mild) with inner and sleeving tubes welded down.

[pistolar]

When you say prone to rust, do you mean 20 years life span is not good enough? How many Sierras are left out there?

[matt-man]

20 odd years is pretty impressive really...

Especially, as pistolar says, look at an 80's sierra!

Remember, rust proofing wasnt mush good back then but i am hoping once done (like my recent project) you should get at least 30 years out of them!!

[Lesliehedley]

I was really wondering if it would not only solve the rust problem once and for all but also add some stiffening to the chassis. On a similar note, would wrapping some of the chassis members in carbon fibre add to the stiffness of the chassis or not? Being a convertible, the chassis is always going to have some flex in it. I just wondered how easy it would be to substantially stiffen it using carbon fibre. Just a thought.

[V8 Fettler]

Convert the chassis into an oil tank for dry sump and oil cooler!