Body Off - The Naked Truth
Discussion
SILICONEKID 357HP said:
Can you get to all the chassis with the engine and diff still fitted ?
I'm very happy with the job and Alex's attention to detail, indeed he's consistently exceeding my expectations for whats possible without me needing to spend the £8k plus people typically end up paying for a bare chassis job. I can't speak for others but the way I see it given the current market value of a good 4.0 litre Chimaera is around £13,500 it simply doesn't make any sense to spend two thirds of that figure restoring it's chassis, especially when the reality is its only ever going to add £2.5k to the car's resale value at best.There I've said it and that's the Chimaera chassis restoration elephant in the room exposed for everyone to see, sadly there's no getting away from it... unless like Alun in this post you're doing a lot of the work yourself, them's the facts folks!
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
It's also why the body on outrigger replacement exists, no one would be doing the job this way if the cars were worth a bit more money
With this sort of work striking the right balance between cost and quality is not easy, on the quality front my opinion is the Alex Wheatly chassis restoration process runs a bare chassis restoration a very close second especially when I consider the number of years it buys me, and for a full £6k less it starts to look like a no-brainer. I'm not a rich plumber like you Daz so in my world six grand is a lot of money, follow this post and look at what I'm getting for the money, now compare it with your typical £2k outrigger replacement job, finally ask yourself if the Alex Wheatly full body off process my car is receiving is worth paying just £500 more for?
The reality is when it comes to the sub £20k classic car bracket no one is making money out of being in the restoration game, the car restoration business model really only starts to make financial sense when the cars you work on are worth £50k up and the repair/restoration side of the business is also supported by buying and selling cars. This is why we've seen a huge increase in so called Porsche specialists in the last 10 years, when the market value of air cooled 911s started to nudge £50k the customer base shifted and everyone and their dog was suddenly a highly experienced Porsche specialist. For the record and from what I've seen with my mates getting arse raped with poor quality overpriced repairs on their air cooled Porsches if you're interested in becoming a classic Porsche specialist all you need is a fancy website and a Porsche sign over your door. Hey presto you're a classic Porsche specialist, now sit back and watch all the 'Tim Nice But Dim' city boys que up at your door gold card at the ready.
Restoration is a highly labour intensive and time consuming business so if you want to specialise in restoring cars at the lower end of market you'll need to have a steady stream of customers who have a special emotional connection with their car that's strong enough for them to overlook the completely irrational commercials associated with restoring it, unless that is you're happy to work for £5.00 an hour. Either that or you'll need to work fast and incredibly smart, this is how Alex Wheatley is able to offer such remarkable value for money. When Alex recently proved he can single-handedly remove the body from a Chimaera in 6 hours the commercials shifted, suddenly the business model makes sense as does restoring the chassis of a £13.5k Chimaera.
Hats off to Alex, no wonder he's stacked out with work and TVR owners are beating a path to his door.
ChimpOnGas said:
With this sort of work striking the right balance between cost and quality is not easy, on the quality front my opinion is the Alex Wheatly chassis restoration process runs a bare chassis restoration a very close second especially when I consider the number of years it buys me, and for a full £6k less it starts to look like a no-brainer. I'm not a rich plumber like you Daz so in my world six grand is a lot of money, follow this post and look at what I'm getting for the money, now compare it with your typical £2k outrigger replacement job, finally ask yourself if the Alex Wheatly full body off process my car is receiving is worth paying just £500 more for?
The reality is when it comes to the sub £20k classic car bracket no one is making [mad] money out of being in the restoration game, the car restoration business model really only starts to make financial sense when the cars you work on are worth £50k up and the repair/restoration side of the business is also supported by buying and selling cars. This is why we've seen a huge increase in so called Porsche specialists in the last 10 years, when the market value of air cooled 911s started to nudge £50k the customer base shifted and everyone and their dog was suddenly a highly experienced Porsche specialist. For the record and from what I've seen with my mates getting arse raped with poor quality overpriced repairs on their air cooled Porsches if you're interested in becoming a classic Porsche specialist all you need is a fancy website and a Porsche sign over your door. Hey presto you're a classic Porsche specialist, now sit back and watch all the 'Tim Nice But Dim' city boys que up at your door gold card at the ready.
Restoration is a highly labour intensive and time consuming business so if you want to specialise in restoring cars at the lower end of market you'll need to have a steady stream of customers who have a special emotional connection with their car that's strong enough for them to overlook the completely irrational commercials associated with restoring it, unless that is you're happy to work for £5.00 an hour. Either that or you'll need to work fast and incredibly smart, this is how Alex Wheatley is able to offer such remarkable value for money. When Alex recently proved he can single-handedly remove the body from a Chimaera in 6 hours the commercials shifted, suddenly the business model makes sense as does restoring the chassis of a £13.5k Chimaera.
Hats off to Alex, no wonder he's stacked out with work and TVR owners are beating a path to his door.
Fits very well with my thoughts on the topic. Even at the 50k+ price bracket, good restorations are rarely and economically justifiable affair. However, that doesn't mean that it it can't be affordable to pay someone to work on a 20-30yo £10k car, and that the person doing it can earn a reasonable hourly rate while doing so. Again, it all comes down to balance, and a bit of stumping up a few grand because you can and because it feels good to be able to.The reality is when it comes to the sub £20k classic car bracket no one is making [mad] money out of being in the restoration game, the car restoration business model really only starts to make financial sense when the cars you work on are worth £50k up and the repair/restoration side of the business is also supported by buying and selling cars. This is why we've seen a huge increase in so called Porsche specialists in the last 10 years, when the market value of air cooled 911s started to nudge £50k the customer base shifted and everyone and their dog was suddenly a highly experienced Porsche specialist. For the record and from what I've seen with my mates getting arse raped with poor quality overpriced repairs on their air cooled Porsches if you're interested in becoming a classic Porsche specialist all you need is a fancy website and a Porsche sign over your door. Hey presto you're a classic Porsche specialist, now sit back and watch all the 'Tim Nice But Dim' city boys que up at your door gold card at the ready.
Restoration is a highly labour intensive and time consuming business so if you want to specialise in restoring cars at the lower end of market you'll need to have a steady stream of customers who have a special emotional connection with their car that's strong enough for them to overlook the completely irrational commercials associated with restoring it, unless that is you're happy to work for £5.00 an hour. Either that or you'll need to work fast and incredibly smart, this is how Alex Wheatley is able to offer such remarkable value for money. When Alex recently proved he can single-handedly remove the body from a Chimaera in 6 hours the commercials shifted, suddenly the business model makes sense as does restoring the chassis of a £13.5k Chimaera.
Hats off to Alex, no wonder he's stacked out with work and TVR owners are beating a path to his door.
Even at the 'bangernomics' end of older daily drives, I have spend £500 getting a car worth £600 through an MOT, because I liked the car, didn't have the time to do it myself, and it was more known than swapping it for another £600 car. Its also less than any pcp deal going!
Daniel
ChimpOnGas said:
SILICONEKID 357HP said:
Can you get to all the chassis with the engine and diff still fitted ?
I'm very happy with the job and Alex's attention to detail, indeed he's consistently exceeding my expectations for whats possible without me needing to spend the £8k plus people typically end up paying for a bare chassis job. I can't speak for others but the way I see it given the current market value of a good 4.0 litre Chimaera is around £13,500 it simply doesn't make any sense to spend two thirds of that figure restoring it's chassis, especially when the reality is its only ever going to add £2.5k to the car's resale value at best.There I've said it and that's the Chimaera chassis restoration elephant in the room exposed for everyone to see, sadly there's no getting away from it... unless like Alun in this post you're doing a lot of the work yourself, them's the facts folks!
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
It's also why the body on outrigger replacement exists, no one would be doing the job this way if the cars were worth a bit more money
With this sort of work striking the right balance between cost and quality is not easy, on the quality front my opinion is the Alex Wheatly chassis restoration process runs a bare chassis restoration a very close second especially when I consider the number of years it buys me, and for a full £6k less it starts to look like a no-brainer. I'm not a rich plumber like you Daz so in my world six grand is a lot of money, follow this post and look at what I'm getting for the money, now compare it with your typical £2k outrigger replacement job, finally ask yourself if the Alex Wheatly full body off process my car is receiving is worth paying just £500 more for?
The reality is when it comes to the sub £20k classic car bracket no one is making money out of being in the restoration game, the car restoration business model really only starts to make financial sense when the cars you work on are worth £50k up and the repair/restoration side of the business is also supported by buying and selling cars. This is why we've seen a huge increase in so called Porsche specialists in the last 10 years, when the market value of air cooled 911s started to nudge £50k the customer base shifted and everyone and their dog was suddenly a highly experienced Porsche specialist. For the record and from what I've seen with my mates getting arse raped with poor quality overpriced repairs on their air cooled Porsches if you're interested in becoming a classic Porsche specialist all you need is a fancy website and a Porsche sign over your door. Hey presto you're a classic Porsche specialist, now sit back and watch all the 'Tim Nice But Dim' city boys que up at your door gold card at the ready.
Restoration is a highly labour intensive and time consuming business so if you want to specialise in restoring cars at the lower end of market you'll need to have a steady stream of customers who have a special emotional connection with their car that's strong enough for them to overlook the completely irrational commercials associated with restoring it, unless that is you're happy to work for £5.00 an hour. Either that or you'll need to work fast and incredibly smart, this is how Alex Wheatley is able to offer such remarkable value for money. When Alex recently proved he can single-handedly remove the body from a Chimaera in 6 hours the commercials shifted, suddenly the business model makes sense as does restoring the chassis of a £13.5k Chimaera.
Hats off to Alex, no wonder he's stacked out with work and TVR owners are beating a path to his door.
It's a bit shabby and could do with a refresh .
Plumbers don't earn that much ,the market has changed for the worse . We are now competing with Uber companies like Boxt .
Beleive it .
SILICONEKID 357HP said:
Porn ?? Love it ! and I mean the chassis .
Did you remove the engine and is it sprayed ?
Body off, engine in situ and brush painted Daz.... but we'll prepped and two coats of industrial marine grade two pack paint skilfully applied for excellent longevity at a realistic price. I got lucky with buying an very early face lift Chimaera built in late 1996 so right at the end of the silver/grey chassis period, for the record the silver/grey chassis finish was paint not powder coat.Did you remove the engine and is it sprayed ?
Jason Clegg who runs Str8Six and worked at the TVR factory in period once told me the silver/grey chassis was first phosphate primed before being top coated, its also clear had TVR prepped the welds properly before priming it would have been a really good job, however its worth keeping in mind I did get 23 years out of my silver/grey chassis before the body was removed.
With the body lifted while we found it did need new outriggers because they'd started to rot in the corners, 95% of the chassis was completely sound requiring just some localised de-rusting, intensive pressure washing revealed 98% of the silver/grey finish remained perfectly intact. If the silver/grey finish was going to fail it would have done so in the 23 years it had been in service, the thinking being if it can survive those 23 years it would effectively continue to hang on pretty much indefinitely.
As TVR's coating remained intact over such a large percentage of the chassis that 23 year old silver/grey finish effectively became our time proven primer coat, once keyed it made for great base to apply the two coats of 2k marine grade epoxy mastic paint which is way tougher than what TVR gave the chassis from new. With new outriggers fabricated from thicker gauge seamless tube in place, double coated in the bulletproof Jotamastic 90 paint system and then shielded from stone chips with laser cut stainless steel outrigger protectors I think it's fair to say we should expect it all to last a lot longer than 23 years.
A full chassis strip and shot blast is undoubtedly the most complete solution but it is a very expensive approach unless you're doing the work yourself, and is it really necessary? I'd argue the approach we've applied to my chassis restoration is a sensible one that's in keeping with the market value of these great cars while not skimping on quality. We've extended the life of my chassis by at least 30 years and probably a lot longer than that, this is a very long time indeed so I honestly think a full chassis strip and shot blast was completely unnecessary in my case.
The best chassis to restore is one that's still in very good condition, we caught mine in time then restored it to far higher standards using better materials than those used by TVR 23 years ago, in a world where people have become used to throwing things away rather than repairing what they have what we are doing here is the perfect demonstration of environmentally responsible car ownership. Forget your hybrids and electric vehicles with their batteries made from cobalt mined with child labour in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a car that will be thrown away in 10 years time. If you really want to be an environmentally responsible car owner what you should be doing is taking a 20 year old car and restoring it so it gives you another 20 years or more of service, this way you're using way less of the world's valuable resources and polluting far less even when you take tail pipe emissions into account.
Car restoration is the ultimate expression of true recycling, it's such an environmentally responsible practice we really should receive grants from the government to fund this kind of work. But of course governments don't want to encourage the restoration of vehicles, they want us to keep buying a new car every 10 years so they can cream off the taxes, but the truth is if you really want to be a genuinely environmentally responsible car owner you should make your car last 40 years or more ..... not go buying a brand new one every 10 years!
I can 100% guarantee if you really sat down and did the environmental impact calculations properly with everything included, my 23 year old low carbon LPG powered TVR would prove itself to be massively greener than a brand new Prius! Don't ever let anyone tell you your TVR is killing the planet, whats really killing the planet are all those millions of new cars being produced every year.
Thanks chaps, it'll look even better with the new suspension bolts in place, all the cable ties fitted and the fuel pipes/hoses reinstated. Alex also tells me the heat insulation kit from Central TVR will be fitted tomorrow along with all the other jobs that make sense to complete with the body off. With a fair wind the chassis will be ready to be reunited with the body by the end of the end of this week, that leaves next week to complete the rest of the work and give the car a good shake down, Alex has said he'll look to deliver the car back to me in the south on Saturday the 7th March.
The weather we've had during the months the car has been away has been Biblically wet, I can't remember a winter where we've had so much rain so it does seem this was the perfect year to restore my chassis. This shocking weather has meant losing the use of my TVR has been a lot less painful as I doubt I'd be using it much, I do still miss driving the car though so roll on the 7th March when hopefully the weather will have started to improve and I can get on with enjoying the 30 plus years of new life we've given my TVR chassis.
The weather we've had during the months the car has been away has been Biblically wet, I can't remember a winter where we've had so much rain so it does seem this was the perfect year to restore my chassis. This shocking weather has meant losing the use of my TVR has been a lot less painful as I doubt I'd be using it much, I do still miss driving the car though so roll on the 7th March when hopefully the weather will have started to improve and I can get on with enjoying the 30 plus years of new life we've given my TVR chassis.
It's amazing how adding a set of wheels changes everything, of course there's a lot more progress here than just bolting the wheels back on, it's all getting frighteningly close to receiving the body.
And talking of the body, here's the Central TVR heat insulation panels going in.
Its all moving forward at pace, Alex Wheatly doesn't hang about
And talking of the body, here's the Central TVR heat insulation panels going in.
Its all moving forward at pace, Alex Wheatly doesn't hang about
Edited by ChimpOnGas on Thursday 27th February 18:58
Matthew Poxon said:
That looks absolutely fantastic, another great project with the usual CoG value add that should see you right for another 20 years.
Thanks Matthew, I'm following your amazimg engine build post with interest too 
We've had the wettest winter in living memory so we definitely chose the right year to take our TVRs off the road, roll on the summer when we'll both be back enjoying our cars
Spunagain said:
Hi Chimpongas,
Thanks for sharing! Do you know - does the Jotamastic 90 require breathing apparatus when brush painting? I don’t seem to be able to download the data sheets on my machine.
Cheers
Spunagain.
Acording to Jotun no breathing apparatus is required, although it is recommend Jotamastic 90 should only be applied in a well ventilated area which is common sense really. Of course I'm not applying my Jotamastic 90, Alex Wheatly is, so I'll let him comment on the vapors it gives off. However, I have used similar 2k finishes in the past and have suffered some really nasty side effects, when I sanded and sealed the wood floors in my last house I used a professional 2k varnish, we applied two coats and when finished my friend helping me threw up outside and I had an insane headache with serious dizziness.Thanks for sharing! Do you know - does the Jotamastic 90 require breathing apparatus when brush painting? I don’t seem to be able to download the data sheets on my machine.
Cheers
Spunagain.
No way could we have worked a minute longer, we just got the second coat down before we both felt very ill indeed. However we were working in a confined space with little or no ventilation and applying the varnish over the large surface area of the floor, this unventilated environment and large surface area would have have meant vapor production and volume would have been way greater than brush painting sections of a chassis in a large workshop with a high ceiling.
All I can say is two component paints are not to be messed with, so if you're planning on using Jotamastic 90 you may wish to take further advise and listen to what Alex has to say if he chooses to pass comment here?
Above all..... Be safe!
Hi Dave what a superb thread I have really enjoyed reading it. I noticed from the pictures of your chassis that you have omitted the brackets for a roll over bar, when I had my outriggers replaced I did not have them fitted as I considered them to another dirt trap did you come to the same conclusion.
John
John
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