Bodge job
IN bits and awaiting reassembly at the moment is a Series III which came in for chassis replacement and has turned out to need rather more. The chassis had been patched and plated in various places, mostly on the principle of “only weld the bits the MOT tester can see”. When I lifted the body tub it was very obvious why the doors on this vehicle did not shut properly: the chassis was so weakened by corrosion and appallingly bad repairs that it sagged in the middle. Worse was to come.
The bulkhead on a Series vehicle is attached to the chassis with two long bolts which pass through the outriggers and the mounting feet at the base of the door pillars. To prevent it from tilting back and forward there are two substantial uprights which brace it between the front of the footwells and the main chassis rails, with three bolts passing through the uprights and chassis rails to clamp the two firmly together. The uprights have slotted holes to allow adjustment of the door gaps, and the offside upright also acts as a support for the steering box, forming a crucial load path between the steering box and the relay in the front crossmember.
Someone had welded a patch over an area of corrosion in the offside chassis rail where the three clamping bolts passed through it. Perhaps there was no 8 mm drill bit to hand at the crucial moment. For whatever reason the repairer decided that three small self-tapping screws would be adequate to hold the upright in place. The result was that turning the steering wheel made the entire upright move forward and back. I have seen a few sub-standard structural repairs over the years but that was a real shocker.