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Restoration, Chassis Repairs/Alignment


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Hi folks, I've taken the body of my newly purchased TR6 restoration project. As expected its very rusty, what I wasn't expecting was to find that some clown had welded the chassis to the body on the passenger side and then covered it up with Schutz but lets forget about that annoyance for now. I'm not certain yet if the chassis is going to be repairable until I have it cleaned off totally but I think it is so I'm proceeding on that basis for now and that will hopefully be borne out. It needs two new trailing arm supports, both legs at the rear where the under boot/trunk bar is positioned, repairs to the two chassis legs at the rear cabin body mounts and replacement of some awful patches up at the front, the TEE shirts look OK but I'll take them off and replace them anyway in case there is anything nasty underneath.

So thats the picture, should be doable but reserve final judgement just yet, if it is doable I'll build a basic jig around the bits that need doing and very carefully make sure the alignment is preserved and then use the excellent drawing in the repair manual to check everything post reconstruction and welding. The issue I'd like a bit of advice on right now from anyone whos actually done any kind of wheel/chassis/running gear alignment on one of these is in relation to the rear right side wheel.  I dont want to do the work and reinstate things to an incorrect alignment and then redo it post test and currently there appears to be a large amount of positive camber and toe in on that RRS wheel compared to the other side, is that something that is within some normal range of adjustment or have I got something bent/misaligned structurally here already ? I see how the trailing arm support could cause a toe in issue but not how it could effect positive camber and in any case it is rusty but intact. I've attached a few photos showing both sides with a crude arrangement which I hope shows the difference, its just a very quick lash up to clarify the question but as per the spirit level in the photos, RHS wheel top to bottom well off the vertical so a lot of positive camber, LHS wheel top to bottom a little off the vertical so small degree of positive camber consistent I would think with a spring unloaded state . Interested to hear your thoughts.

RLHS Spirit Level Close Up.jpg

RLHS Overview.jpg

RRHS Overview.jpg

RRHS Spirit Level Close Up.jpg

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Need to see which way up the trailing arm brackets are fitted and how many shims are fitted first.

Stuart.

 

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Also before you go worrying too much about that I would go all round the chassis with a hammer and do some tapping, if it goes"Dink!" then thats good metal, if it goes "Donk!" thats rotten then make up your mind as to wether its viable to repair, Oh and you will find the main rails are rotten behind the "T" shirts as they usually are even if it looks OK on the outside.

Stuart.

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1 hour ago, stuart said:

Need to see which way up the trailing arm brackets are fitted and how many shims are fitted first.

Stuart.

 

Thanks for responding Stuart, you're referring to the trailing arm support members or rails in terms of which way up? I'll take a couple of photos. I'll have a more detailed look but I did notice quite a few shims behind the inside mounting of the RHS trailing arm but didn't worry too much about that in terms of camber is I figured it would relate more to toe in and would account for the excessive toe in. The RHS toe in is too much for sure but not as dramatically so as the positive camber. I'll count and photo the shims. 

Yeah I'm assuming things will be rotten behind the TEEs just on the basis of research on YOUTUBE alone.

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1 hour ago, stuart said:

Also before you go worrying too much about that I would go all round the chassis with a hammer and do some tapping, if it goes"Dink!" then thats good metal, if it goes "Donk!" thats rotten then make up your mind as to wether its viable to repair, Oh and you will find the main rails are rotten behind the "T" shirts as they usually are even if it looks OK on the outside.

Stuart.

Thanks, I had done that with a blunt chisel from underneath before I took the body off and was content enough but right enough I should have done that even before posting. I'll man up and do that this evening, always bit heart in mouth that kind of thing isn't it but better to know now for better or for worse!

I have a boroscope device somewhere that connects to my laptop, might take a look with that too if I can dig it out.

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Hi - re the camber, Stuart was referring to the brackets themselves that the trailing arms are bolted to - there are one, two and three notch brackets - the notches are little dimples in the sides of the bracket and this denotes the orientation of the two holes in the bracket from horizontal - with 3 different brackets, which can be turned upside down as well as moved form inside to outside, there are loads of permutations to correct camber issues- there is a website which details all this but I can't remember what/where it is, but someone will be along shortly I'm sure to clarify

cheers Rich

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1 hour ago, rcreweread said:

Hi - re the camber, Stuart was referring to the brackets themselves that the trailing arms are bolted to - there are one, two and three notch brackets - the notches are little dimples in the sides of the bracket and this denotes the orientation of the two holes in the bracket from horizontal - with 3 different brackets, which can be turned upside down as well as moved form inside to outside, there are loads of permutations to correct camber issues- there is a website which details all this but I can't remember what/where it is, but someone will be along shortly I'm sure to clarify

cheers Rich

Ah now I understand and I dont have to post the photos which were too big anyway! Thanks.

 

4 hours ago, stuart said:

Need to see which way up the trailing arm brackets are fitted and how many shims are fitted first.

Stuart.

 

RHS, 3U 1U, 4 shims inside 4 shims outside.

LHS 3U 1U, 4 shims inside, 3 shims outside.

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1 hour ago, rcreweread said:

Hi - re the camber, Stuart was referring to the brackets themselves that the trailing arms are bolted to - there are one, two and three notch brackets - the notches are little dimples in the sides of the bracket and this denotes the orientation of the two holes in the bracket from horizontal - with 3 different brackets, which can be turned upside down as well as moved form inside to outside, there are loads of permutations to correct camber issues- there is a website which details all this but I can't remember what/where it is, but someone will be along shortly I'm sure to clarify

cheers Rich

buckeye 

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1 hour ago, stuart said:

Read this to understand rear geometry Rear geometry

Stuart.

Thanks Stuart, great document. It fully addresses my question on whether or not there are camber adjustments. "No there are not but yes there are":D:D:D, so I'm happy with that. I've since done a "donk, dink" test on the upper body of the chassis and again still reserving judgement until its totally clean so the dinks are crystal clear but I think in the main its going to be OK, there are donks but so far only around the visible corrosion. Wow the oil leaks are such a benefit when you really look at it, there is clean bare metal in places up front under the oil grunge, not even surface rust! Logically enough at the back where the spray and **** gets thrown up and no oil leaks the corrosion is at its worst.

In the meantime I've mulled it over and read some other old posts yourself, Rich and some others did over the years wrt chassis alignment and repair and it seems clear (should have been obvious really I suppose) that simply making sure that I repair whilst making sure there is no variation on the geometry I have is a flawed concept. I have to measure current against the Brown Book and then make the repair plan for each repair specifically to deliver dimensional results as per the Brown Book regardless or in spite of what I currently have.

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Your camber isn't too bad. Looks like a couple of degrees which will reduce when you've got weight on it. Definitely within the realms of adjustment.

The rear chassis droops and can look unsightly when viewed from the rear of the car I'd be inclined to measure that or better still drop the body on and have a look.

Looks rough though and obviously the floors, inner sills etc must be bad as still partially attached to the frame. I'd be inclined to look out for a chassis as I reckon it's pretty much shot from the middle back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_20200116_162000183.jpg

IMG_20200202_133328715.jpg

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2 hours ago, mtrehy said:

Your camber isn't too bad. Looks like a couple of degrees which will reduce when you've got weight on it. Definitely within the realms of adjustment.

The rear chassis droops and can look unsightly when viewed from the rear of the car I'd be inclined to measure that or better still drop the body on and have a look.

Looks rough though and obviously the floors, inner sills etc must be bad as still partially attached to the frame. I'd be inclined to look out for a chassis as I reckon it's pretty much shot from the middle back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_20200116_162000183.jpg

IMG_20200202_133328715.jpg

Hi mtrehy, yeah you're right its not great. Its a peculiar car, the inner sills are good, one of the floor pans is good, the boot is quite good, the rear wheel arches are good, the front wheel arches are good, the outer sills are bad, the front inner wings/fenders are shot in that they are both cracked at the flanged joint with the bulkhead and that makes the front of the car pretty much ready to fall off which is kind of dramatic! All the outer panels are really good but they could be replacements and just not seen much road, footwell kick panels again shot in that the flanges have gone where they interface with the inner wings and the bulkhead. Front panel/valence perfect, rear valence meh, OKish. So a peculiar car, like a bag of allsorts, but the main thing right now is as I've further dismantled tonight the chassis is definitely very poor, not just behind but in one full outside rail , its dog rough one could say without much fear of contradiction.  I bought it from photos on account of the lockdown so took a gamble and sure its not a great start in my TR and classic car career but so be it no point in crying about it, I'm a stubborn man so yeah I'll look for a repairable chassis but I presume thats not an easy thing to get so I'll fix this if needs be, I think given time and patience its possible alright.

Hey on a more cheerful note yours looks great, well done thats going to make a really nice clean underneath and a good drive too. 

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Hi

This might be irrelevant at the moment if your chassis is shot but toe in can be altered by swapping shims. As a guide, in my case taking one shim from the inside & adding it to the outside reduced toe in by 3.1mm on the RHS & 3.2mm on the LHS.

Alan

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2 minutes ago, TRier said:

Hi mtrehy, yeah you're right its not great. Its a peculiar car, the inner sills are good, one of the floor pans is good, the boot is quite good, the rear wheel arches are good, the front wheel arches are good, the outer sills are bad, the front inner wings/fenders are shot in that they are both cracked at the flanged joint with the bulkhead and that makes the front of the car pretty much ready to fall off which is kind of dramatic! All the outer panels are really good but they could be replacements and just not seen much road, footwell kick panels again shot in that the flanges have gone where they interface with the inner wings and the bulkhead. Front panel/valence perfect, rear valence meh, OKish. So a peculiar car, like a bag of allsorts, but the main thing right now is as I've further dismantled tonight the chassis is definitely very poor, not just behind but in one full outside rail , its dog rough one could say without much fear of contradiction.  I bought it from photos on account of the lockdown so took a gamble and sure its not a great start in my TR and classic car career but so be it no point in crying about it, I'm a stubborn man so yeah I'll look for a repairable chassis but I presume thats not an easy thing to get so I'll fix this if needs be, I think given time and patience its possible alright.

Hey on a more cheerful note yours looks great, well done thats going to make a really nice clean underneath and a good drive too. 

Finished and sold. I restore a few...

I'm not trying to be negative or critical but there is very little point starting out with such a bad car as a base. I have done some that sounded similar to yours but you are into maybe 800 hours (if you're relatively competent - more if you're learning as you go).

Import a solid car from the US and start with that

IMG-20200426-WA0015.jpg

7970a462-cb0c-4953-9dd0-e2e6916eec5e.jpg

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14 minutes ago, mtrehy said:

Finished and sold. I restore a few...

I'm not trying to be negative or critical but there is very little point starting out with such a bad car as a base. I have done some that sounded similar to yours but you are into maybe 800 hours (if you're relatively competent - more if you're learning as you go).

Import a solid car from the US and start with that

IMG-20200426-WA0015.jpg

7970a462-cb0c-4953-9dd0-e2e6916eec5e.jpg

Not taken as critical or negative, I didn't breed the car I just bought the job of fixing it, if I bred it I might get offended alright :D:D. No, I appreciate the input and there is a lot of truth in what you say but it is what it is and I'm not going to reverse now, its doable and I didn't get into it as a commercial proposition, I got into it to teach my son some skills in a way that is interesting for him, that's already working so no complaints. I'll continue to strip this and look around for a short cut of some sort and failing that bite the bullet and do it the hard way.

Like your work by the way, that's the kind of quality anyone can appreciate. Like it should be. I forgot to mention to you, the reason there was elements of the floor/sills left on the mounts was because I had to cut them off, someone had welded patches on to body and chassis, nice :wacko::wacko::wacko::wacko:. They didn't serve their time in your place anyway!

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37 minutes ago, super6al said:

Hi

This might be irrelevant at the moment if your chassis is shot but toe in can be altered by swapping shims. As a guide, in my case taking one shim from the inside & adding it to the outside reduced toe in by 3.1mm on the RHS & 3.2mm on the LHS.

Alan

Thanks Alan, not irrelevant to me. Yeah the toe in isn't so dramatic so I would assume its well within the realms of adjusting with shims, interesting to see the practical impact in figures though, makes sense too in that the shims look like a mil or maybe 1.2 thick so double that for the adding at one end and subtraction at the other end of the arm and its going to end up somewhere like 3mm. Not exactly correct but close enough, I'm too tired for geometry right now:D.

Thanks for the input, I'll use it.

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On 1/25/2021 at 8:19 PM, mtrehy said:

I'd be inclined to look out for a chassis as I reckon it's pretty much shot from the middle back.

Hi All

To be fair I don’t think my chassis was quiet as bad as Triers but after blasting I had to do the trailing arms, T Shirts and a few other repairs, but did consider a SH chassis but was unsure about how the DVLA view it and of course getting a good one is not simple.

The DVLA website says that for rebuild vehicles (would a body off chassis counts as rebuilt?) “You can keep ots original registration number if you can prove you’ve used the original unmodified chassis or bodyshell” or “a new chassis or monocoque bodyshell of the same specification as the original”

So how does that all affect SH chassis?

And how does the “unmodified” clause affect new chasis from the likes of CTM with added strengthening and other mods?

It may be extensive expensive repairs of the original ends up being less costly that a SH one unless a SH is no prob to the DVLA.

Cheeers   Keith

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5 hours ago, Keith66 said:

Hi All

To be fair I don’t think my chassis was quiet as bad as Triers but after blasting I had to do the trailing arms, T Shirts and a few other repairs, but did consider a SH chassis but was unsure about how the DVLA view it and of course getting a good one is not simple.

The DVLA website says that for rebuild vehicles (would a body off chassis counts as rebuilt?) “You can keep ots original registration number if you can prove you’ve used the original unmodified chassis or bodyshell” or “a new chassis or monocoque bodyshell of the same specification as the original”

So how does that all affect SH chassis?

And how does the “unmodified” clause affect new chasis from the likes of CTM with added strengthening and other mods?

It may be extensive expensive repairs of the original ends up being less costly that a SH one unless a SH is no prob to the DVLA.

Cheeers   Keith

I wouldn’t be an expert there but as there is no stamped chassis number on the TR6s why would one even bring it up, it’s not a serial numbered or unique part? In terms of a beneficial interpretation of the “same specification” a new chassis fits the bodyshell (which is the serial numbered piece in this case) or one wouldn’t buy it so it if it was me I wouldn’t even raise it.

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Hi All

Mine was just a general question, my car has been back on the road for a while and I did my chassis repairs over 10 years ago but didn't know if TRier fitted a new or SH chassis it is considered ok as I really have no idea.

And of course the rules may well be different in ROI anyway.

Cheers Keith

1404559205_Backontheroad.thumb.jpg.4c4bb3b1d87dd8f493af5b3aba8d8ea5.jpg

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16 minutes ago, Keith66 said:

Hi All

Mine was just a general question, my car has been back on the road for a while and I did my chassis repairs over 10 years ago but didn't know if TRier fitted a new or SH chassis it is considered ok as I really have no idea.

And of course the rules may well be different in ROI anyway.

Cheers Keith

1404559205_Backontheroad.thumb.jpg.4c4bb3b1d87dd8f493af5b3aba8d8ea5.jpg

Hi Keith, yes the rules are different, they are more helpful in terms of classic aged cars in that the authorities have just more or less taken a view that they just don't really matter so you can within reason do what you like, there is no MOT or NCT as it is here, fixed low tax rate. All of that much like the UK but the big difference being there is no 8 criteria here which have to be met or maintained to avoid the car being viewed as fundamentally changed, there just isn't any such rule, once the car reaches the age you could in theory make a new chassis or put a jet engine in it. So chassis change for me would be a non issue. Its not so much a loophole in a rule as there is just no rule, it works to advantage in classic and older cars but not so much in say kit cars, there are very few kit cars in Ireland because there is no simple or direct way to register a new car unless you have a European CoC, you would also have to pay vehicle registration tax based on the on the day market value, and they decide what that is and the tax could be 30% of that number. You could leverage the donor if it was of classic age of course and that would get you by the authorities but not the insurers in that your car would officially be a Rover XXX 35 years old and their inspectors would care and would of course see your nice Cobra replica and say "that ain't no Rover buddy you're out".

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