June 2015 and with the body off, the chassis strip down enters the final stages.
Although an initial inspection did not show any major issues it did reveal that the body sat on play wood strips laid on top of the chassis. Apart from having wood worm these were also showing signs of moisture retention. The top surface of the chassis has thus suffered more than the lower portions but still does not look too bad.
As the strip down progressed it was time to document where everything went. Brake light switch & pipes.
Earth strap to battery.
Clutch Pedal assembly and front brake pipe feed.
The rear axle u bolts & brake pipe feed.
Handbrake fulcrum mechanism.
The rear spring shackles. There are two set ups on the Regal. The original earlier version features two metal plates connecting the leaf spring and chassis mount bolts. This later version features a single piece Y shaped assembly that contains the rubber bush in the upper part.
And finally the simplicity of the bare chassis is revealed. One of the rear shackle bolts is stuck fast at this point and will take a huge amount of work to remove. In the meantime the threaded holes have bolts fitted to protect the threads during shot blasting. And off it goes in the back of a minibus !
Once blasted the chassis was given a coating of etch primer. Once home inspection revealed the areas where corrosion had set in. Time to dig out the MIG welder.
One area of particular rot was on the underside of the box section below the drivers side. This is where the simple clips for the fuel pipe push into holes in the side of the box section. this has obviously let in water that has settled and corroded from the inside. This section was removed and a new plate welded on.
Another item of concern were stress fractures showing around the rear shock mounts. Apparently it was not unheard of for these to break on early Regals. These will be drilled and welded.
With repairs completed it was onto getting a coating of POR15 Chassis black on.
This was applied using a brush and roller. Particular attention has been paid to all the indentations in the assembly and the front crossmember.
And to solve the issue of water ingress, I used these rub nuts to provide a metric threaded fitting to mount P clips to in order to hold the fuel line.
July 2015 - Time to clear floorspace in the garage and set the frame out on axle stands ready for re assembly.
