Driver’s Diaries
Fourteen pages featuring our regular contributors classic trials & tribulations.
L ast month we left off having dropped the E-Type off at the acid dippers and being fearful of what maybe returned. As I suspected, there was a quite a bit of filler covering the previous rear arch repairs and the floors had been fabricated from poorly cut and shaped sheets of thick steel, some of which had been pop riveted in place. One good point was that the rear suspension mounts looked sound and the only area of concern was around the box section where the anti-roll bar mounts.
The sills looked pretty terrible though, as did some of the toe board areas where they attach to the floor. In the past someone had fitted some quite reasonable pattern rear wings, but the welding was not particularly good. The boot floor was in a similar condition to the floors in that flat sheet had been used to badly repair the area. However, it wasn’t all bad news as what was particularly pleasing was the condition if the tubular engine frames.
These were in very good condition and won’t be replaced, which is good news as these items are not cheap to buy. The Jaguar’s ‘picture frame’ wasn’t rotten but using this area as a jacking point had abused it. This will need quite a bit if repairing to make it look good again.
The bonnet revealed some poorly patched areas that will need chopping out, but I may have to run to two new front wings too if these prove to be past their best. With the shell inspected it was time to mount it to the rotisserie. I decided to take a different approach this time that will benefit future projects. I’m never keen on mounting the rotisserie at the extremities of the front and rear of the body shell, as this presents quite a bending load. This isn’t great on a rotten or roofless car.
To counter this in the past I’ve made frames that link the rotisseries to the suspension mounts. This worked but it wasn’t as strong as I would
I’m never keen on mounting the rotisserie at the extremities of the front and rear of the body shell, as this presents quite a bending load
have liked, so I decided this time to make a demountable base frame of 3”x 6” section steel and weld a pair together on each side. I then placed the shell on tall stands, levelled it then brought the new frame under the car, The meant I could then fabricate mounts from the frame to the shells suspension points. This method proved far more satisfactory and also allowed for a level of jigging that would be required as panels were removed and braced the door apertures for peace of mind though.
The only other consideration when making this fabrication was the engine frames. I wanted the ability to bolt in or remove them over time without affecting the rotisserie, as these parts are key to aligning fixings in the sills but also sometimes need to be out the way. This required extra length to be added to the fabrication, which would also allow the bonnet to be fitted later. I had to take extra care with the design around the front mounts, as I’d used the engine frame mounts as pick up points for the front rotisserie mount
With the shell mounted I then spent some time getting the best door fit I could, as this would become a factor of reference. One side was okay, confirming the shell hadn’t distorted, but the other was less, probably like this as a result of prior repair work. This will have to be corrected as I change the B pillars. With the shell securely mounted on the rotisserie I could now start to plan removing the rot and poor repairs and started on the left hand side floor pan.
After working methodically with the plasma cutter and spot weld drill trying to find and keep as many reference planes as possible, I started to make a long list of the replacement panels that would be needed and ended up with placing a rather large order. Next month we’ll be returning to action on the Healey 3000, as the substructure is due back from paint from the paintshop any day now.