Chassis time

A couple of weeks ago I made a start on the chassis by chopping off the outriggers, there was plenty of strong metal in them, but they were somewhat home-made looking and they would not have lined-up properly with the replacement body.

Cutting them off revealed the remain of the previous ones and a couple of holes in the chassis to be delt with.

The old and thinned metal was cut out and replaced with fresh 2mm plate, butt welded in. It's a shame I had to grind the welds back so much, but as the outriggers fit over this, it needs to be quite flat.

The replacement outriggers went on quite easily, with only a couple of milimeters needing to be removed from each outriger for them to fit in the right position on the chassis rail. Because I was fitting the outriggers without the body in place, quite some time was taken to make sure they were to be welded in the correct position, mainly by taking lots of measurements from the chassis I had borrowed to move the body to the paint shop.

I'd spent quite a bit of time stripping off the old paint, but I realised I could not get into all of the area to clean it as well as I wanted, so I decided to get it shot blasted. Luckily for me, I'd found someone fairly local, who could do the job while I waited.

With the chassis back, there was a little more welding to be done, the shot basting having revealed some thin metal in the bonnet mounts and the front crossmember. The chassis was then painted using Rust Bullet Black shell for added protection.