Brad
Good to hear you are making excellent progress on the 4 ... It was
interesting to read how you were 'getting at' the places that you need
to repair. You may find it a
little difficult welding upside down. What I did was to use two pieces
of 4 by 2
wood and put castors on them. I made them stick out about 6-9 inches
larger than the body tub and located them into the main body mounts.
You can see this if you look at
http://members.tripod.com/~BrianJohnson_UK/page120.html
By having the wood bearers stick out, all I had to do was lift on one
side, and I could lean the entire body tub against the garage wall the
wood took all the weight, so nothing was bent. This meant that both
welding and spraying was a lot easier. The castors meant that I could
manouvre the tub in the garage quite easily.
I also had the tub shot blasted all over (and under), then etch primed
before I painted several layers of various rust preventative paints onto
it.
Shot blasting can reveal more problems though - I found holes in my boot
floor and had
to replace it after the blasting. Thats why I'm having the TR2 tub
blasted before I do any repairs.
The second picture on the above site shows what it looked like half way
through the painting. Yes the black bits are underseal ! BTW have
you considered how to get rid of the water from the plenum chamber ? I
put some pipes underneath the front fender (wing - good grief I'm going
American !) and made an escape channel for any water so that it would
not rot the sills where they are hidden. I can put a picture of what it
looked like on the web page if you like ! But then maybe it doesn't rain
in Nebraska !
I too had problems with my front suspension arms. You couldn't buy new
ones then (and I suspect you can't now) . I got some second hand ones
but they were worn in a similar way. I have heard of people using big
washers to solve the problem, but what I did was to build up a layer of
braze to overcome the ovality on mine. I didn't have a drill bit large
enough (or a reamer) so I had to hand fettle the hole. It worked out OK
though but it was hard work doing all four. I didn't want to use weld
because of the temperature, I wasn't sure whether it would de-temper the
metal or not. Braze is also easier to file. Amazingly my TR2 suspension
arms are all OK ! Lucky me !
Good luck next week !
--
Cheers
Brian Johnson
Internet bjohnson@mmm.com (work) or b.johnson@diamond.co.uk (home)
1963 TR4 AFP503A / IZS 733 - CT27216-L (now not L but O ) ex USA
1954 TR2 46 BHX TS554-O in lots of pieces UK Car
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