26 February 2013

Chassis Refurbishment 25-26/02/2013

Recently in my last post we transported the chassis to where I could work more easily with other family and friends, it has been obvious from the start of the project that the top front chassis rail (where normal Marcos 3.0 Litre cars have radiator brackets mounted) needs replacement as a number of brackets etc have been welded and subsequently ground off in turn.
The car has has an odd stance where it used to stand, I was sure it was fine, but on looking at the chassis when the body was off it looked as though there was a bending effect on the drivers side, I initially put this down to it 'not being on a level surface' as the floor of my shed slopes down toward the front door.

Since transport and the chassis being placed on the axle stands on a level surface, it appears that the Drivers side top and bottom rails are bent and that a packing job has been done on the base rail of the passenger side rail also so common sense would be to replace all of them to ensure that weaknesses dont occurr further down the line and due to the fact I'm galvanising this chassis you cannot easily weld and maintain a good treatment to the chassis once it is galvanised.

Below are some pictures of the chassis some work already done to the front top rail replacement.

Cuts made with an angle grinder cutting disc
Front end minus the modified top rail the residual chassis section on either  side will be chopped out to tidy the re-welding area.
As mentioned above, the chassis rails were shown to be bent downwards, the new chassis steel we have bought is completely straight, this was offered up as a guide and proves that the drivers side is amiss.

view from the interior of the chassis
Rail viewed from the outside of the chassis
Below is a picture showing the passenger side rail:
  
Straight chassis rails, note the metal plate welded to the top side of the bottom rail just behind the upright.                                  

I made a trip over to Marcos Heritage spares this afternoon to ask Rory's advice on how we should proceed Rory strongly advised that if a problem exists then every effort should be made to correct the issue particularly as I intend to galvanise this chassis. The advise was also to use the fron bulkhead chassis rail as the point to work from replace the top and the top front chassis rail then work from these on the base rails and this should then correct the issues with my front end.

Well as usual, there will be further updates on this as and when we make the changes to the chassis.

10 February 2013

Some progress at last!

So as I have spent the last three months getting every bit of Overtime I can, I have started doing a few jobs that dont cost much first of all, but are vital in insuring that I have enough cleaned up and restored parts ready for re-assembly, now rather than document individual entries from the last couple of months I'll condense them for more interesting viewing into one post.
First of all, I've been returning to the clean down of the engine, the steering rack and prop shaft. These are all a bit grubby so out came the tin of Gunk and I applied this generously to the parts that needed it, rinse off with a pressure washer and then one more coat of gunk to make sure.
The steering rack was really grubby, its position on the chassis means it collects dirt from road going, and any fluids that have leaked from the engine lump itself (Grease/oil etc). I also had to remove the bushes from the each end of the rack as these are starting to perish they are held on with twisted retaining wire rather crude looking but took me long enough to get the damn things off!

Prop shaft 'Pre-degreasing'




The Steering Rack was coated in gunk and wire brushed to the point that oil and grease was dropping off the item, Again the process above has been repeated and a rinse off done.

Wire brushed and degreased steering rack looking great!
Following the clean down of the steering column, I broke out the Hammerite rust protector paint and applied a reasonable coating once the moving parts and bits that need to remain as are were covered. the central part of the rack is a solid tube that can be painted, care must be taken as looking round the tube there is a small hole almost like a breather hole where grease might go into lubricate the joint, ensure this is well masked off to avoid spraying paint into it that will eventually dry and potentially block the hole entirely. I made a bit of an error here as it was really cold in the garage and this was affecting the rate at which the paint would dry, also the coverage looked a bit patchy so thankfully this was only a light coat.









Once this was done I turned my attention to the prop shaft which had been degreased and rinsed a couple of times, this was also now ready for coat number one. Again using the satin smoothrite spray paint I set to work. I actually suspended this from the rafters of the shed as it gave me an unrestricted area to spray round.

I have now after all the fun and games of these parts arranged the transport of the chassis to be altered, the front end to be re built to the original specification as the modification made before is neither exact nor is it pretty!

Here are some piccies of the chassis out in the cold light of day for the first time in a couple of years.




An eventful and busy couple of weeks will follow as I have some time off booked, to add the bracing to the chassis that will stiffen it up firstly, and then allow a tidier appearance to the front end that will mean I can send it away for the all important shot blast, galvanise and powdercoat that will protect the chassis for many more years and add value in the long term. I dont really want to have to strip this car down again very soon!