Slow progress with the rebuild (lots of pics)
Discussion
It's been a long time since I posted any pics up, so here's a few to pass a sunday...
First off here's a few pics I didn't post before.
They looked ok with the rust removed:
But under weren't so nice:
So I cleaned them up & made a new plate section:
There was a gap in the weld that let water in so I seam welded my new bits all round to keep water out:
It been many months since I got those & everything else back from the powder coaters:
Was looking good, so I got on cleaning up where the bushes went:
& pressed in the new bushes:
I was always intending to spray rubber stone chip paint over all the exposed bits, only flatting the lovely shiny bits down by hand was depressing & tedious.
So I stopped to fiddle with my other cars for a few months. I was glad I had left it when I came back to it, it was then obvious some areas hadn't been blasted properly before powder coating:
I didn't bother taking it back, figuring the guy made lots of reference to the fact he knew I'd shopped around & was doing it at a very low price & wasn't making any money. Then if he couldn't do it right first time, he was hardly likely to a second... Also I was planning on over painting all the problem areas anyway.
So I tried different power wire brushes but the new powder coat was a right pain to remove & they still didn't take the rust off:
So I got this:
To avoid too much mess I took the chassis down to the bottom on the garden & I blasted clean all the bits I needed to:
I had been to see it at the powder coaters & he had it hanging on its side so those rusty suspension brackets pictured earlier would have been hard to get at. I blasted a bit more off in different places & all the rust had been taken off there, which was a relief!
There were some bits that weren't rusty under the powder coat, but it was so thin from where the upper tube had masked the lower when it was sprayed on it came of with a small file:
As well as the bad bits I also blasted all the suspension mounts, then had to very quickly etch primer it all in 2k to stop it rusting again.
Then masked off all the suspension mounts to stop the thick stone chip paint getting on them:
Then gave it all a good coat of rubberised stone chip, three coats on the out riggers:
Removed the masking:
Then sprayed with 2k colour, so it ended up looking just like it did when I started:
In doing the blasting my self I found why some of the suspension that should have had good access all round weren't so good - inside the U sections the media does a U turn in there & comes right back at your face rapidly blasting the eye glass in the mask so you can't see what you are doing:
The powder coat removal was still slow going even with the blaster, but it's the only way in bits like this:
Also very quick for bits like this, that didn't have powder coat on:
Having removed all remaining rust I 2K etch primed all the blasted areas, then again masked off the bits I didn't want to get the thick stone chip on:
Sprayed the rubberised stone chip:
Removed the bits of masking I did want to get the 2K colour on:
Then sprayed them in the 2K colour:
The stone chip doesn't need to be over coated in colour, but it looks nicer and gives it a smother easier to clean surface that it'd harder for crud to stick to in the first place.
Then I could finally start think about putting it back together, but I found there are a lot of spacers & top hats etc that don't come with those bolt kits for the suspension. So I could re-use the original bits I got a zinc plating kit. Here is a good selection of them after degreasing:
Here's some other bits that stared the same after a good soak in deox-C:
A dip in the plating tank
Hi tec suff.....
But looks good after:
Now I've just got to get this little fella to put the bolts back in the right places & I'll be done!
First off here's a few pics I didn't post before.
They looked ok with the rust removed:
But under weren't so nice:
So I cleaned them up & made a new plate section:
There was a gap in the weld that let water in so I seam welded my new bits all round to keep water out:
It been many months since I got those & everything else back from the powder coaters:
Was looking good, so I got on cleaning up where the bushes went:
& pressed in the new bushes:
I was always intending to spray rubber stone chip paint over all the exposed bits, only flatting the lovely shiny bits down by hand was depressing & tedious.
So I stopped to fiddle with my other cars for a few months. I was glad I had left it when I came back to it, it was then obvious some areas hadn't been blasted properly before powder coating:
I didn't bother taking it back, figuring the guy made lots of reference to the fact he knew I'd shopped around & was doing it at a very low price & wasn't making any money. Then if he couldn't do it right first time, he was hardly likely to a second... Also I was planning on over painting all the problem areas anyway.
So I tried different power wire brushes but the new powder coat was a right pain to remove & they still didn't take the rust off:
So I got this:
To avoid too much mess I took the chassis down to the bottom on the garden & I blasted clean all the bits I needed to:
I had been to see it at the powder coaters & he had it hanging on its side so those rusty suspension brackets pictured earlier would have been hard to get at. I blasted a bit more off in different places & all the rust had been taken off there, which was a relief!
There were some bits that weren't rusty under the powder coat, but it was so thin from where the upper tube had masked the lower when it was sprayed on it came of with a small file:
As well as the bad bits I also blasted all the suspension mounts, then had to very quickly etch primer it all in 2k to stop it rusting again.
Then masked off all the suspension mounts to stop the thick stone chip paint getting on them:
Then gave it all a good coat of rubberised stone chip, three coats on the out riggers:
Removed the masking:
Then sprayed with 2k colour, so it ended up looking just like it did when I started:
In doing the blasting my self I found why some of the suspension that should have had good access all round weren't so good - inside the U sections the media does a U turn in there & comes right back at your face rapidly blasting the eye glass in the mask so you can't see what you are doing:
The powder coat removal was still slow going even with the blaster, but it's the only way in bits like this:
Also very quick for bits like this, that didn't have powder coat on:
Having removed all remaining rust I 2K etch primed all the blasted areas, then again masked off the bits I didn't want to get the thick stone chip on:
Sprayed the rubberised stone chip:
Removed the bits of masking I did want to get the 2K colour on:
Then sprayed them in the 2K colour:
The stone chip doesn't need to be over coated in colour, but it looks nicer and gives it a smother easier to clean surface that it'd harder for crud to stick to in the first place.
Then I could finally start think about putting it back together, but I found there are a lot of spacers & top hats etc that don't come with those bolt kits for the suspension. So I could re-use the original bits I got a zinc plating kit. Here is a good selection of them after degreasing:
Here's some other bits that stared the same after a good soak in deox-C:
A dip in the plating tank
Hi tec suff.....
But looks good after:
Now I've just got to get this little fella to put the bolts back in the right places & I'll be done!
Thanks very much 
All the pics are here if any of the new guys want to see the before shots & the body being lifted.
quattrophenia said:
3 coats on the outriggers... I take it you dont intend doing another body-off next year then!!! Excellent effort there, may she serve you well.
Funnily enough when I started this time last year, I was planning on doing a partial lift with a quick tidy up that I would re-do in a year or two, but once I'd got going that seemed silly. I think just didn't want to admit to my self it would be off the road so long before getting stuck in... All the pics are here if any of the new guys want to see the before shots & the body being lifted.
It will be interesting to see if anyone can come up with a cost of all of this, not just sand-blasting/powder coating/welding etc but with some idea of time too.
I notice that TVR Power sell a brand new chassis for almost every other model, I am sure it is only a matter of time before there is a Cerbera one; surely going down that road must be much easier than all of the work involved in a project such as this.
It does look absolutely fab though chap - well done.
Edited for speeeling
I notice that TVR Power sell a brand new chassis for almost every other model, I am sure it is only a matter of time before there is a Cerbera one; surely going down that road must be much easier than all of the work involved in a project such as this.
It does look absolutely fab though chap - well done.
Edited for speeeling
Edited by Flashheart on Sunday 26th June 23:23
Thanks again for the kind words, it’s only you lot who are ever likely to see all this work in the end so I’m glad you all like it 
Sand is illegal, that is not sand you can see in the pic I've also never run with de-cats & have never driven the Cerb in the upper regions of its capacity's on any public road as that too would be illegal... However that is my DIY air fed mask you can see in the pic with the blaster (a cut off diving regulator) & I do live out in the country side with neighbours very far apart. I will be looking into the different types of media available before using it on any of my other cars though as my DIY mask was a bit of pain to use, it would be much easier to have a normal dust mask on.
The chassis referb alone cost very little really & took about three months, the steel was all of 15quid, about 40 in degreasing as - I had so much waxoyl on it, then for the blasting & powder coat of the chassis alone I was quoted around 250 pounds, so a lot less then a new one. But I’ve spent a very long time over the years scraping off the flaking powder coat & re-waxoyling every year trying to keep as good as possible in anticipation of this re-build, if you take all that time in to account too the 2.5K sounds quite good! You do have to remember that is just for a new chassis though & if you haven’t been taking care of it for the last 9 or 10 years most of the suspension will be very bad too by now & if you add all the bits for that up it really starts costing.
To have every thing you can see in that pic up top powder coated was about 450, but as I said that was a cheap job & it showed, it would have been better to have paid more & inspect all the bits my self after they had been basted & before they were primed. But I’ve had fun so not too bothered really
I’ll keep adding pics when I get some worth while ones…
Mags said:
Great work, the attention to detail is good to see. Nice welding too!
Is the blaster worth the effort and how quickly does it use media up? I'm mid way through a VW Bus resto and could really use one but I wondered if the home ones would be worth the effort?
You may have noticed the VW bug in the back ground then, that's why I have so much practice in welding! The blaster is very good, I've tried those ones that look like spray guns & they are rubbish, but the pressure fed ones are very very good, there is some great info here on them & every other aspect of restos.Is the blaster worth the effort and how quickly does it use media up? I'm mid way through a VW Bus resto and could really use one but I wondered if the home ones would be worth the effort?
Sand is illegal, that is not sand you can see in the pic
I've also never run with de-cats & have never driven the Cerb in the upper regions of its capacity's on any public road as that too would be illegal... However that is my DIY air fed mask you can see in the pic with the blaster (a cut off diving regulator) & I do live out in the country side with neighbours very far apart. I will be looking into the different types of media available before using it on any of my other cars though as my DIY mask was a bit of pain to use, it would be much easier to have a normal dust mask on. Flashheart said:
It will be interesting to see if anyone can come up with a cost of all of this, not just sand-blasting/powder coating/welding etc but with some idea of time too.
I notice that TVR Power sell a brand new chassis for almost every other model, I am sure it is only a matter of time before there is a Cerbera one; surely going down that road must be much easier than all of the work involved in a project such as this.
It does look absolutely fab though chap - well done.
Sprint did say power would be producing Cerb chassis very soon for around the 2.5K +VAT I think it said. I wasn’t best pleased when I read that! I notice that TVR Power sell a brand new chassis for almost every other model, I am sure it is only a matter of time before there is a Cerbera one; surely going down that road must be much easier than all of the work involved in a project such as this.
It does look absolutely fab though chap - well done.
The chassis referb alone cost very little really & took about three months, the steel was all of 15quid, about 40 in degreasing as - I had so much waxoyl on it, then for the blasting & powder coat of the chassis alone I was quoted around 250 pounds, so a lot less then a new one. But I’ve spent a very long time over the years scraping off the flaking powder coat & re-waxoyling every year trying to keep as good as possible in anticipation of this re-build, if you take all that time in to account too the 2.5K sounds quite good! You do have to remember that is just for a new chassis though & if you haven’t been taking care of it for the last 9 or 10 years most of the suspension will be very bad too by now & if you add all the bits for that up it really starts costing.
To have every thing you can see in that pic up top powder coated was about 450, but as I said that was a cheap job & it showed, it would have been better to have paid more & inspect all the bits my self after they had been basted & before they were primed. But I’ve had fun so not too bothered really
I’ll keep adding pics when I get some worth while ones…
Edited by Luckyone on Monday 27th June 10:52
Long time with the update, better late than never though I hope...
Note the pics are actually hot links, click on them if you want to see them in a larger size.
Starting with Uprights corrosion:
Bolts took a bit of getting out! I had to make a tool out of a bit of hacksaw blade & an old bolt...
(Note all aluminium parts such as these and the rear backing plates were anodised when new, this is obvious if they have been anodised purple or some other bright colour, but with the colour of these it’s not. Once the hard surface the anodising has been broken it corrodes just as badly as steel. Some are just stone chips, the other bits go at the edge of the bolted on steel parts on go because the thin zinc coating of the steel quickly dissolves on our roads & the steel rusts, as the rust expands it damages the hard anodised surface & breaks through it, you then get a bit of sacrificial corrosion of the aluminium thrown in too for good measure.)
Here you can see the corrosion caused by the edges of rusty steel bits bolted to the bottom
I started out by blasting the top hat while it was still bolted to the upright & masked off the rest of the upright with gaffer tape to stop it getting blasted, but decided to do it properly & strip it right down. This resulted in the dull grey circle, I was still trying to work out how best to treat them at this stage. The obvious solution would have been to blast & paint them all over, but I wanted to try & keep some of the exposed ally as it looks nice. Also I didn’t want to mess with the machined finish on the mating surfaces.
I’ve no idea if this will work out in the long run, but I decided to grind out the corrosion with a dremal & fill the holes that were next to the steel bits with metal epoxy, I then masked off bits I wanted to keep ally & sprayed with 2k etching primer:
Don’t forget to put those bolts in BEFORE the top hats go on…
Bits that can’t be seen I just left as a hole.
I then over coated that with epoxy mastic paint, hubs painted with just epoxy mastic (I don’t like POR 15):
The hubs were cleaned up later, they can’t really be painted.
Backing plates were bead blasted etch primed then. Painted with epoxy mastic as they were assembled to seal up the joining faces along with the hubs.
Upper diff mount, much easer with the body off!
Starting to get somewhere
You can just see on the ally there a yellow spot, that was one of stone chips, as there was no steel near by to help the corrosion it wasn’t too deep so I ground it back & touched it in with a brush & 2K primer, then later touched it up with smoothright silver paint, as it’s good match.
Checking for bump steer, very very heath Robinson but I got repeatable results & found there wasn’t any to speak of.
Nothing at all on bump, just this small amount of tow out on full droop, which should be good.
Next up hand brake modds, this is the stock item, if yours is very very bad, it could just be that the pin is in the lower hole. Also note the rusty worn mark on the ratchet plate, this is because you tend to pull the hand brake leaver towards your self as you pull it up as its so high up in the car, it’s clearly been rubbing, a little lube here would go a long way..
I decided a little more mechanical advantage was in order:
With the pin in the upper hole even before my mod it was pulling the cable at a bit of an angle, but that was worse now.
So that was fixed too
I also cleaned out the cables that run to the rear so they could move freely, they have a plastic liner inside the outer sleeve so the inner cable is a tight fit & if any waxoly has got down there it will have dust stuck to it impeding the movement. The net result is now a very effective hand brake, we have a very steep drive that it’s never been able to stop on before but now it can!
A badger re modelled the under side a long time back so I gave that a quick tidy up before dropping the body back down:
Trouble was I kept finding other bits that could be made a bit better, managed to stop before doing it all though.
Sorry rubbish pic
Happy with that...
But before dropping the body it was time to push it out side & stand back.
Spent an entire day just cleaning up the wheels..
The little fella loved helping push it,
If I make a seat here can we go for a drive...
I did paint the diff & drive shafts, but everyone seems to be doing that these days, so didn't bother with pics of that
And drop...
Some persuasion to get it back down – note scissor jack & block of wood
All done, well apart from the engine, but that’s for another day…
Here dad it's a bit mucky.
He did help clean it, but he's the main reason there are such big gaps between updates. Typically just as he is big enough to actually help there is another one on the way now, so the engine re-build will be a long time coming...
Note the pics are actually hot links, click on them if you want to see them in a larger size.
Starting with Uprights corrosion:
Bolts took a bit of getting out! I had to make a tool out of a bit of hacksaw blade & an old bolt...
(Note all aluminium parts such as these and the rear backing plates were anodised when new, this is obvious if they have been anodised purple or some other bright colour, but with the colour of these it’s not. Once the hard surface the anodising has been broken it corrodes just as badly as steel. Some are just stone chips, the other bits go at the edge of the bolted on steel parts on go because the thin zinc coating of the steel quickly dissolves on our roads & the steel rusts, as the rust expands it damages the hard anodised surface & breaks through it, you then get a bit of sacrificial corrosion of the aluminium thrown in too for good measure.)
Here you can see the corrosion caused by the edges of rusty steel bits bolted to the bottom
I started out by blasting the top hat while it was still bolted to the upright & masked off the rest of the upright with gaffer tape to stop it getting blasted, but decided to do it properly & strip it right down. This resulted in the dull grey circle, I was still trying to work out how best to treat them at this stage. The obvious solution would have been to blast & paint them all over, but I wanted to try & keep some of the exposed ally as it looks nice. Also I didn’t want to mess with the machined finish on the mating surfaces.
I’ve no idea if this will work out in the long run, but I decided to grind out the corrosion with a dremal & fill the holes that were next to the steel bits with metal epoxy, I then masked off bits I wanted to keep ally & sprayed with 2k etching primer:
Don’t forget to put those bolts in BEFORE the top hats go on…
Bits that can’t be seen I just left as a hole.
I then over coated that with epoxy mastic paint, hubs painted with just epoxy mastic (I don’t like POR 15):
The hubs were cleaned up later, they can’t really be painted.
Backing plates were bead blasted etch primed then. Painted with epoxy mastic as they were assembled to seal up the joining faces along with the hubs.
Upper diff mount, much easer with the body off!
Starting to get somewhere
You can just see on the ally there a yellow spot, that was one of stone chips, as there was no steel near by to help the corrosion it wasn’t too deep so I ground it back & touched it in with a brush & 2K primer, then later touched it up with smoothright silver paint, as it’s good match.
Checking for bump steer, very very heath Robinson but I got repeatable results & found there wasn’t any to speak of.
Nothing at all on bump, just this small amount of tow out on full droop, which should be good.
Next up hand brake modds, this is the stock item, if yours is very very bad, it could just be that the pin is in the lower hole. Also note the rusty worn mark on the ratchet plate, this is because you tend to pull the hand brake leaver towards your self as you pull it up as its so high up in the car, it’s clearly been rubbing, a little lube here would go a long way..
I decided a little more mechanical advantage was in order:
With the pin in the upper hole even before my mod it was pulling the cable at a bit of an angle, but that was worse now.
So that was fixed too
I also cleaned out the cables that run to the rear so they could move freely, they have a plastic liner inside the outer sleeve so the inner cable is a tight fit & if any waxoly has got down there it will have dust stuck to it impeding the movement. The net result is now a very effective hand brake, we have a very steep drive that it’s never been able to stop on before but now it can!
A badger re modelled the under side a long time back so I gave that a quick tidy up before dropping the body back down:
Trouble was I kept finding other bits that could be made a bit better, managed to stop before doing it all though.
Sorry rubbish pic
Happy with that...
But before dropping the body it was time to push it out side & stand back.
Spent an entire day just cleaning up the wheels..
The little fella loved helping push it,
If I make a seat here can we go for a drive...
I did paint the diff & drive shafts, but everyone seems to be doing that these days, so didn't bother with pics of that
And drop...
Some persuasion to get it back down – note scissor jack & block of wood
All done, well apart from the engine, but that’s for another day…
Here dad it's a bit mucky.
He did help clean it, but he's the main reason there are such big gaps between updates. Typically just as he is big enough to actually help there is another one on the way now, so the engine re-build will be a long time coming...
Edited by Luckyone on Thursday 29th December 03:33
Fantastic effort and results.
I can relate to how difficult it is to find the time to work on the car with a little one in the household. (Mine's seven months old now!)
Going back to early on in your rebuild, what product(s) did you use to remove the waxoyl from your chassis please?
I'm about to tidy some areas of my chassis up and need to find a way of removing the stuff as easily as possible.
Many thanks and well done.
I can relate to how difficult it is to find the time to work on the car with a little one in the household. (Mine's seven months old now!)
Going back to early on in your rebuild, what product(s) did you use to remove the waxoyl from your chassis please?
I'm about to tidy some areas of my chassis up and need to find a way of removing the stuff as easily as possible.
Many thanks and well done.
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