First Chassis Spine Removable Cover

With the Framehead repairs complete it's time to move on to the underside of the chassis spine. As a reminder, I had cut two sections of thsi panel out; one at the rear due to the original panel being distorted due to jacking the car in the past and the other due to the need to remove rust from inside the chassis spine. A byproduct of this process is that I can route pipework and locate components within the chassis spine easily during the rest of the build. Whilst this process does affect the torsional strength of the chassis, as this is a race car the cage that is to be fitted later will put the needed strength, and more back.

Starting with the longer of the two holes, the edges were trimmed and neatened.



Here we have the two panel pieces removed from the original spine section and also a second, almost complete spine section panel that I caferully removed from another chassis. You can see all the spot welds along the edges of this panel that were drilled out to remove it!



Next the appropriate section was cut from the donor panel, leaving sufficient spare length at each end to allow for accurate trimming later.

The panel was then cleaned up using a wire brush on an angle grinder and laid in place to ensure it was right.

Finishing up the Framehead

Into finishing up the framehead repairs this week.

Firstly the chassis spine was flipped over so it was right side up. Then a bit more welding.

 After that the welds were ground down. Masking tape was used to prevent the grindings going into the Napolean's hat and corroding later on.

Once cleaned up a coat of zinc rich primer was laid on to try and keep surface rust at bay until the full floorpan is painted.

Spine flipped over again and the welds ground down...

...and finally the underside was also primed.

One completed framehead repair!

Welding up the Framehead Closing Panel

Lots of welding this week!

Fully welding the various parts of the closing panel after tack welding them into position.

 Plug welding where the original spot welds were drilled out. The last piece of the closing panel was finally trimmed to size and checked for alignment.

The last repair panel (the black one in the above picture) was cleaned up, correctly aligned and tack welded into it's final position.

It's was then fully welded, completing the welding from the underside.

Continuing with the Framehead Closing Panel Repairs

This is the last part of the closing panel roughly cut to size, cleaned up and coated in zinc rich primer on the inside face.

Here you can see the above panel roughly in place. Again, the white circle on it was a dent that was dressed out before priming the other side. The rest of the closing panel is clamped in place and I've started to make the repair parts for each end, where the main chassis bolts pass through. Here they are roughly cut to size from the reproduction repair panel.

Now the end repairs are trimmed to a correct fit. At this point they were cleaned up, aligned correctly and tack welded into place. The whole panel was removed again and these repair pieces then fully welded.

The welds were ground down and the panel re-primed on the inside face.

The whole panel was then clamped back into place ensuring correct alignment and tack welded.