Body off for the MOT!
Discussion
Off goes my pride and joy to Dulford Automotive for a bit of minor fettling for it's MOT - or so I thought!
Rear end bushes, headlight bulb and a bit of other stuff. No drama.
Phone call about an hour later, can you come over, it's on the ramp and you need to see this.
What you are now looking at is a poor photo of a two inch gap in my chassis next to the sump.
Only option is to lift the body off and fix the chassis once and for all. To say I am upset is a bit of an understatement. The car is a '99 4.5 and has done 33000 miles. It has been looked after, serviced and waxoyled regularly and my faith in the quality of metal used at Bristol Avenue is somewhat shaken. On the plus side, the chassis will be stripped, blasted and zinc coated and have new bushes and lines fitted.
The next few Christmases are cancelled in the Smoke household! But it's in the best hands possible with Richard Smith so a bit of unscheduled restoration on a 7.5 year old Cerby should see it back better than ever.
Rear end bushes, headlight bulb and a bit of other stuff. No drama.
Phone call about an hour later, can you come over, it's on the ramp and you need to see this.
What you are now looking at is a poor photo of a two inch gap in my chassis next to the sump.
Only option is to lift the body off and fix the chassis once and for all. To say I am upset is a bit of an understatement. The car is a '99 4.5 and has done 33000 miles. It has been looked after, serviced and waxoyled regularly and my faith in the quality of metal used at Bristol Avenue is somewhat shaken. On the plus side, the chassis will be stripped, blasted and zinc coated and have new bushes and lines fitted.
The next few Christmases are cancelled in the Smoke household! But it's in the best hands possible with Richard Smith so a bit of unscheduled restoration on a 7.5 year old Cerby should see it back better than ever.
The problem is that they painted on to virgin metal and did not blast it 1st so the finish flakes off. That was my observation when i did mine anyway, i did mine over the xmas period, i had 2 coates of zinc primer before the finish over the top. I had all the wisbones roll bars etc done while at it. If you dont mind what have they quoted you?
Tyre Smoke said:
Phone call about an hour later, can you come over, it's on the ramp and you need to see this.
What you are now looking at is a poor photo of a two inch gap in my chassis next to the sump.
That's horrendous!
Has anyone DIY waxoyled their chassis to good effect to prevent this, or are you talking about a complete strip-down to do it properly?
Been there done that and have the empty wallet - luckily mine was done on a cheap car to start with and semi-planned. Good luck, it's all worth it and it will be better than it was when it left the factory and will last longer this time.
Edited by touching cloth on Friday 4th May 11:16
whitey said:
has it always lived outdoors???
Nope, lives in a nice warm garage. It does go out in the rain and in the winter, but not often.
What really shocked me was the total absence of metal on a 2" section of two chassis tubes, yet the other side is as solid as a rock. All I can think of is a lump of wet mud has lodged there and caused the damage over time. Odd though because of it's close proximity to the engine and associated heat. The rest of the chassis looks surprisingly good by comparison, okay flaking coating in places that need attention but not wholesale disintegration. Unless the chassis was outside at Bristol Avenue for a period and some water ingress occured then and started it's evil work from the inside??
Would have expected it perhaps on an early Cerb, but not a late '99 model.
I think you have the dubious honour of having the newest Cerb that needs the chassis doing.
I've seen A rotten 98 & Horizon have just done another 98.
Strangely you don't seem to hear about the early one's suffering.
I'm not overly sure the build quality got any better over time. There's over 4 years difference between mine, and it's nice to see the handbrake works equally sh1tely on both of them.
In fact, the later model seems to have copious amounts of what looks like "bees wax" emanating from every orifice, where two pieces of "leather" (TVR's description) meet.
I've seen A rotten 98 & Horizon have just done another 98.
Strangely you don't seem to hear about the early one's suffering.
I'm not overly sure the build quality got any better over time. There's over 4 years difference between mine, and it's nice to see the handbrake works equally sh1tely on both of them.
In fact, the later model seems to have copious amounts of what looks like "bees wax" emanating from every orifice, where two pieces of "leather" (TVR's description) meet.
I'm loathe to announce it before they do themselves as they will be inundated with calls especially seeing they are mega busy and I'm hoping mine will be the donor car for the first chassis and don't want any of you lot to jump the queue.
However I imagine the chassis guy is in Blackpool and I don't think transport costs from there to the garage will be to expensive.
However I imagine the chassis guy is in Blackpool and I don't think transport costs from there to the garage will be to expensive.
I thought I heard that there was certain amount of "fitting" of each car to each chassis - to get a different chassis in compared to what was there originally surely could be marred with a multitude of fit issues, and the time spent sorting that might quickly outweigh the benefits surely? The labour cost of removal and refit are essentially the same anyway, so you are weighing up the shot blasting, repair and re-powder coating costs against the cost of buying a whole new chassis only - yes the turnaround could theoretically be quicker but will it actually bring the total job cost down I wonder.
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