The guy who set up the Stoke TR group had a chassis galvanised for a TR5 about 20 years ago. When he came to build it into a car last year he found out the whole thing was bent like a banana, presumably from the way it was suspended in the galvanising bath.
As you can imagine he was somewhat pi**ed off about it!
I have never heard any mention of a new chassis being detrimental to the value of a TR, usually the opposite as the originals were notorious for cracking at the weak spots. My own TR5 had seen a lower wishbone mount tear out of the drivers side resulting in the wheel being rammed back into the sill. Fortunately before I owned it!
I found it had a later lump of TR6 chassis grafted in with pigeon sh*t weld holding it in not quite the right place, but too difficult to easily remove so I ended up having to make a good job of welding it in and then reshim the wishbone to suit. At least this bit hasn't gone wrong again, but I have had to weld thicker metal into the other lower wishbone mounts as they were fatigue cracking round the wishbone mounting bolts.
As my car was an ungaraged daily driver for at least 10 years I needed decent rust protection. This took the form of an outer layer of waxoyl underseal which must be about a quarter of an inch thick now, with little alloy plates cut out and embedded in the underseal on the sill end caps and floor to chassis mounts as these were stone chipped back to bare metal annually. For interior protection I squirt engine oil in through the interior chassis holes annually, and any outer holes where mud can splash in were filled with rubber grommets.
It sure as hell isn't going to win any concours prizes, but it has been 22 years since I repaired the chassis, and nearly 100,000 miles covered with no signs of corrosion breaking through so I know it works!
Neil
As you can imagine he was somewhat pi**ed off about it!
I have never heard any mention of a new chassis being detrimental to the value of a TR, usually the opposite as the originals were notorious for cracking at the weak spots. My own TR5 had seen a lower wishbone mount tear out of the drivers side resulting in the wheel being rammed back into the sill. Fortunately before I owned it!
I found it had a later lump of TR6 chassis grafted in with pigeon sh*t weld holding it in not quite the right place, but too difficult to easily remove so I ended up having to make a good job of welding it in and then reshim the wishbone to suit. At least this bit hasn't gone wrong again, but I have had to weld thicker metal into the other lower wishbone mounts as they were fatigue cracking round the wishbone mounting bolts.
As my car was an ungaraged daily driver for at least 10 years I needed decent rust protection. This took the form of an outer layer of waxoyl underseal which must be about a quarter of an inch thick now, with little alloy plates cut out and embedded in the underseal on the sill end caps and floor to chassis mounts as these were stone chipped back to bare metal annually. For interior protection I squirt engine oil in through the interior chassis holes annually, and any outer holes where mud can splash in were filled with rubber grommets.
It sure as hell isn't going to win any concours prizes, but it has been 22 years since I repaired the chassis, and nearly 100,000 miles covered with no signs of corrosion breaking through so I know it works!
Neil
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