Hi All
Right then Project Plonker continues !! ...
To say i got fed up with filling and sanding is an understatement so for a change i have left the body alone for a while and have been working on the chassis, now although the chassis looked "solid" it had been repaired a lot and not to the best standard so a lot of what i have done is making right whats been done badly before along with other repairs it needed along the way
I started off by bracing the chassis to keep the width correct...
- 20200618_135911 (Medium).jpg (256.8 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200618_140408 (Medium).jpg (304.59 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
After these were in, the 1st repair i started with was the biggest as you do lol, this started but cutting out the centre bar which holds the rear gearbox mount...
- 20200618_151356 (Medium).jpg (233.4 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
you can see in this picture some of the holes and previous repairs that had been done on the drivers side chassis rail
- 20200618_151359 (Medium).jpg (216.67 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
this is the bar that was removed, i have another one of these in better condtion with the flat plates and gearbox mount already on so this bar is going to be re used further in the post
this section of the chassis rail was then cut out and all that was left was the bottom plate which had already been replaced and is in good condition so I left this in place to re use ...
- 20200618_154701 (Medium).jpg (288.51 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
this was then all cleaned up...
- 20200618_172944 (Medium).jpg (236.43 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
I then place the chassis on angle iron both sides to level it up and also to keep the strength whiilst sections were cut out...
- 20200619_133256 (Medium).jpg (238.54 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
So then what do I do about getting a new chassis rail for a 50 year old reliant, well i did ask my old mate Alex D if the company he uses for the delorean chassis metalwork could make me a section, he helped me out loads as usual and did some drawings and sent them over to the company, however they seemed to have a problem with making the small lip on the bottom of the panel so then it started me thinking, do i have the skill to make it ??
Well I thought sod it il have a go, i have a sheet of the 1.2mm steel sheet from ages ago so its not going to cost me anything to try just my time, I must also stress I DONT have a sheet metal break for folding metal, this is what i came up with ...
- 20200612_185040 (Medium).jpg (291.01 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200612_190030 (Medium).jpg (191.85 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200614_105820 (Medium).jpg (165.94 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
In case your wondering, that's a vice, 3 pieces of angle iron, 4 C clamps, 2 pairs of mole grips, a lump of metal (my hydraulic press base) and a club hammer and this is what i ended up with ...
- 20200617_155753 (Medium).jpg (174.08 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200617_155810 (Medium).jpg (207.25 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
Not absolute perfect but I'm pretty chuffed with the result
I then did a 1st test fit ...
- 20200619_161230 (Medium).jpg (247.68 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
All seemed fine, so i then proceeded to drill the base plate so i could plug weld the new home made panel on, this is effectively the same was the original would have been made only when Reliant did it, it was spot welded
- 20200619_172056 (Medium).jpg (261.05 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200619_204603 (Medium).jpg (269.27 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200620_145950 (Medium).jpg (190.89 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
Then at the rear after welded the seams on, i did some CAD (cardboard added design) and made an over plate to overlap the join as per the original, this was also made with the lip on so it could be plug welded along the edge ...
- 20200620_115038 (Medium).jpg (162.29 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200620_115331 (Medium).jpg (166.15 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200620_144620 (Medium).jpg (185.42 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
Now Before i went any further, i wanted to put that centre bar back in to keep everything in place and the dimensions right...
- 20200620_154450 (Medium).jpg (171 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200620_171755 (Medium).jpg (279.18 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
And you remember the original centre bar that i took out, that has now been cleaned up with the brackets removed and relocated to the rear of the chassis to replace a previous very badly repaired bodge...
- 20200622_172129 (Medium).jpg (252.82 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200623_123647 (Medium).jpg (155.12 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200622_175848 (Medium).jpg (186.6 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
Right with that in i went back to the chassis rail to carry on cutting out more previous bodgery...
- 20200623_145703 (Medium).jpg (270.36 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200623_161910 (Medium).jpg (224.76 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
- 20200624_213956 (Medium).jpg (259.79 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
Before i could go any further with this section of the chassis rail I had to sort out the front end of the chassis, luckily from the donor yellow regal i managed to salvage a good section of chassis which happened to be the exact bit i needed...
- 20200624_130216 (Medium).jpg (179.72 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
I then cut out the rotton but on mine ...
- 20200625_115304 (Medium).jpg (276.05 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
Got the "new" bit clamped in ...
- 20200625_144004 (Medium).jpg (240.87 KiB) Viewed 7387 times
I will carry on, on the next post as i have run out of pictures !
To be continued ...