Whilst the bodyshell was off being sprayed, it was time to focus on the chassis. I was really lucky with the chassis, it was actually in very sound condition for its age, and apart from some strengthening around the usual places such as the diff mounts, the rest was very straightforward. Again, I decided to dip the chassis as I had done with the bodyshell, so it was shipped off to Envirostrip for them to do the necessary. What I did do though, before sending it off, was to drill a few extra 10mm holes in areas where the box sections in the chassis were inaccessible. This would not only help to get the stripping chemicals into these sections, but would also make it easier for us to access these sections when coating with rust protection later.

Chassis dipped and stripped

Primed and ready for painting

I was undecided about whether to paint the chassis with standard chassis paint, use POR15, galvanise or powder coat. After doing some reading around, I ruled out galvanising due to the weight, and also powder coating as I thought that it might chip off in due course, and if it didn't, would probably still rust from the inside out anyhow. That left POR15 or a rust treatment base coat followed by good quality chassis paint. POR15 seemed to be a good choice, but there were a few instances documented where it didn't adhere very well. This might have been due to application technique, but I didn't want to take the risk, so I ended up going for the rust treatment followed by chassis paint.