How much of an issue is outrigger rust?

[GG33]

Possibly looking to buy a cerb and have been made aware of the potential for corrosion in the outriggers....How many suffer from this? is it a show stopper? whats the cost of a proper repair? Is it possible to find one without any corrosion in that area?

What mileage should I expect before a rebuild is due (4.5)?

Any other serious items I should be aware of?

Thanks

GG

[brakedust]

GG33 said:

Possibly looking to buy a cerb and have been made aware of the potential for corrosion in the outriggers....How many suffer from this? is it a show stopper? whats the cost of a proper repair? Is it possible to find one without any corrosion in that area?

What mileage should I expect before a rebuild is due (4.5)?

Any other serious items I should be aware of?

Thanks

GG

Outriggers seem to be a bit of a lottery, if you get a good one and then protect them you should be fine, As long as you get them inspected before you buy you should be worry free.

If you do find rust later it can be repaired without lifting the body off (offords and probably others can do this) but people tend to go down the winter project route and have the full thing sorted so its set for life.

As for a 4.5 rebuild? Another hard one to guess, I think someone here has over 125000 miles on the same engine?! Im on 55000 and showing no signs of needing any work

Hope that helps

[shpub]

Outrigger replacement is a body off job. No easy short cuts as it takes the same amount of work to lift the body a few inches as to take it right off. Not the same as the Griff or Chimaera. Takes about 2 days to take off and 2 days to put back assuming no problems. Add to that the cost of repairing the chassis, shot blasting and powder coating and it is quite an expensive route to go through, especially as the work uncovers other things that need replacing.

Usually if the outriggers have gone, the transmission tunnel is also on its way out.

Edited by shpub on Friday 10th April 09:06

[stats007]

I'm guessing anything from £3 - £5k then?

From the ones I've looked at the heads got skimmed and new gaskets 20-30k - full rebuilds 40-50k but who knows!

[SimonSparrow]

Like most things in life 'it depends'.

Bad outrigger rust is best tackled by removing the body. Minor rust behind the front wheels (where there is a trap for mud etc.) can be done in situ. I had mine fixed by Offords this way last august.

Engine wise, its also a bit of a lottery, but if its running well, then should be ok for the forseeable future.

At the end of the day, these cars were all hand built, so there is more variation of build quality than one might hope for. Try a few to get a feel and get your favorite checked over by a reputable expert.

[ridds]

How on earth did they repair that in situ?

Also, I'm not sure if it would be an MoT failure, not near any suspension or seatbelt mounting points. Or is different due to the fact that it's a seperate chassis like a Landrover. Did I really just compare a Cerb to a LR?

[cerdad]

To do in situ a piece of body is cut out ,theoutrigger can than be attacked from all sides then the bodywork gelled back in.
I had my nearside one done by pr woods, they advertise in sprint.

[BCA]

Mileage wise, I reckon 100k.

Some get more, some get less... ours has been used hard for 80k and is showing just slight signs its getting a bit tired, but it still doesnt use too much oil and pulls bloody well, so we'll have a re-think at the body-off stage. I honestly doubt there are engines built in stuttgart that can take such abuse... and if the porsche engineers ever heard a GT3 or whatever making the kind of racket our cerb makes at cold idle, they'd swear it needed rebuilding immediately!

80k for us, 97 4.5 - maintained by the best and still scaring supercars in terms of outright straight line pace.