Chassis - How much can you do without lifting the body?
Discussion
Ok folks going to bite the bullet this winter and take the cerb off the road for a few months to give the chassis a good going over with many coats of POR15 to stop any rot for a few years.
My question is, how much of the chassis can you get to without lifting the body? I know that I'll probably need to remove exhausts, radiators, cooling pipes etc but I dont think I'm competent enough to lift the body myself.
My question is, how much of the chassis can you get to without lifting the body? I know that I'll probably need to remove exhausts, radiators, cooling pipes etc but I dont think I'm competent enough to lift the body myself.
How long's a piece of string?
I did my chassis and outriggers at the beginning of the summer, doing as much as was feasably possible without getting silly. With rad out, F1 panel out and the airboxes off, you can get to a fair amount of the underbonnet stuff, but mine was in pretty good shape anyway, so I just focused on the stuff underneath.
Most of the underbody chassis parts are reasonably accessable (especially if you take the exhaust and underbody brace off), but it's difficult to get to the tops of lots of the outrigger members, so I used a combination of ?-shaped wire brushes and glasspaper wrapped around pieces of bendy plastic to do the strip-down (an airgun is pretty handy too for blasting out the crud that accumlates there), and then used Kurust in a plant-sprayer to get to the bits I couldn't reach.
I didn't do all the suspension components either, as it's not really possible to do a good job without taking them all to pieces, and I'm planning on tackling all the suspension over this winter (new bolts, bushes etc).
FYI - I used Kurust (a rust converter), followed by Wurth Zinc 300 (cold galvanisation paint), followed by a coat of spray stonechip paint, and finally a coat of Tetraseal (the black sticky underseal stuff) over the top. I filled the gaps between the outriggers and the body with Waxoyl, and made up little rubber "mudguards" to fit over the front outriggers to stop them getting stoneblasted by the front wheels. The most important thing of all though is prep - I thought I'd get it all stripped down in a day, and in the end the whole process took four full days on a four post ramp, plus nearly two weeks of afternoons up on axle stands.
I did my chassis and outriggers at the beginning of the summer, doing as much as was feasably possible without getting silly. With rad out, F1 panel out and the airboxes off, you can get to a fair amount of the underbonnet stuff, but mine was in pretty good shape anyway, so I just focused on the stuff underneath.
Most of the underbody chassis parts are reasonably accessable (especially if you take the exhaust and underbody brace off), but it's difficult to get to the tops of lots of the outrigger members, so I used a combination of ?-shaped wire brushes and glasspaper wrapped around pieces of bendy plastic to do the strip-down (an airgun is pretty handy too for blasting out the crud that accumlates there), and then used Kurust in a plant-sprayer to get to the bits I couldn't reach.
I didn't do all the suspension components either, as it's not really possible to do a good job without taking them all to pieces, and I'm planning on tackling all the suspension over this winter (new bolts, bushes etc).
FYI - I used Kurust (a rust converter), followed by Wurth Zinc 300 (cold galvanisation paint), followed by a coat of spray stonechip paint, and finally a coat of Tetraseal (the black sticky underseal stuff) over the top. I filled the gaps between the outriggers and the body with Waxoyl, and made up little rubber "mudguards" to fit over the front outriggers to stop them getting stoneblasted by the front wheels. The most important thing of all though is prep - I thought I'd get it all stripped down in a day, and in the end the whole process took four full days on a four post ramp, plus nearly two weeks of afternoons up on axle stands.
Edited by Nefarious on Wednesday 15th October 13:53
Be prepared - it's *hard work*.
I used a couple of wire brush attachments (wheel and cup) on a reasonably powerful drill, and it does help, but there's lots you've got to do manually (mostly you've got to get the stonechip coating off first with a scraper/screwdriver - and lots won't come off easily).
I had a powerfile, which would have been brilliant, had I not got a dodgy batch of bands which kept breaking every 2 mins. If I'd been able to get some kevlar bands over that first weekend, it probably would have saved me a good few hours.
Another useful one is to cut out some pieces of plastic from milk/fabric conditioner bottles and tape course sandpaper round them - very useful for getting into narrow gaps between the outriggers and the body.
A little wire wheel on the long Dremel extention thingy would've been useful too, for getting into some of the tricky nooks and crannies, but I'd left mine at the other house.
At the end of the day, it's mostly elbow grease.
p.s. use of a proper 4-post ramp will cut the prep time in half.
I used a couple of wire brush attachments (wheel and cup) on a reasonably powerful drill, and it does help, but there's lots you've got to do manually (mostly you've got to get the stonechip coating off first with a scraper/screwdriver - and lots won't come off easily).
I had a powerfile, which would have been brilliant, had I not got a dodgy batch of bands which kept breaking every 2 mins. If I'd been able to get some kevlar bands over that first weekend, it probably would have saved me a good few hours.
Another useful one is to cut out some pieces of plastic from milk/fabric conditioner bottles and tape course sandpaper round them - very useful for getting into narrow gaps between the outriggers and the body.
A little wire wheel on the long Dremel extention thingy would've been useful too, for getting into some of the tricky nooks and crannies, but I'd left mine at the other house.
At the end of the day, it's mostly elbow grease.
p.s. use of a proper 4-post ramp will cut the prep time in half.
Edited by Nefarious on Friday 17th October 11:35
Erich Stahler said:
What about the chassis parts in the proximity of the exhaust manifolds, whatever you do in the way of refinishing surely these areas will always get cooked to the point where the finish will just flake off in great big strips?
Yes. of course. So you finish it to what your satisfied with, then protect it with heat reflective material. Have a look at what Steve Heath and Longbow have done with their engine bays. Gives you a good idea of what you can do. Your wallet is the limit.caduceus said:
I've done mine, but the engine and box were out, so I could do as much of the chassis as is possible without lifting the body.
I used POR15 and am happy with the results. Its a very lengthy process and very dirty, but the results are worth it.
Looks really good in white! I wasn't aware you could get white por15? Did you get it from frosts? White would make sense as surely it would show up any future damage to the coating better than black I used POR15 and am happy with the results. Its a very lengthy process and very dirty, but the results are worth it.
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