Is my ebay chassis square enough?

[beardydave]

In February I bought a chassis off eBay described as being professionally welded and painted. Mostly. Paid just over £100.

Since then it's sat out side my garage waiting for my former housemate (who moved out in October last year) to clear the last of his stuff and restoration project out of my garage, and last month the chassis was moved into the garage and sat on axle stands.

Last night I finally got round to taking a tap measure to it in anger, and I found things less than completely perfect. I'm an engineer by trade, and well aware of things call manufacturing tolerances, particularly in welded frames, but I've got no experience of chassis, so I've put the measurements I took below for your advice as to whether I've bought a chassis or a piece of scrap metal.

Desired figures are given in brackets after measured figures. These were taken with a tape measure so have a probably measuring tolerance of +-2mm

p34 - bottom rails

• BR5/BR6 vary from 1117 to 1118 to 1117 apart across their length (1118)
• BR5 & BR6 = 811 (813)
• BR10 and BR12 vary from 1383 to 1382 apart (1385)
• Width of chassis @ BR10 = 919 (924)
• BR7 and BR12 vary from 2091 to 2090 apart (2095)
• BR8 and BR9 vary from 473 to 475 apart (478)
• FF1 and BR12 are 2355 apart (2360)

p35 - front frame

• FF1 = 395 (392)
• FF4 = 628 (630)
• Height of front frame = 353 (355)

The rest of the chassis measured up ok where I could measure it, although the transmission tunnel tapers out from about halfway along it's length (going back to front) where the book shows it as parallel until the tapering out for the gearbox/foot wells.

Suspension points

Front suspension p47

• Upper wishbone brackets = 667 & 668 apart (670)
• Lower wishbone brackets = 490 & 489 apart (494)
• Damper brackets = 625 apart (630)
  
• Upper lengths apart = 192 (194)
• Lower lengths apart = 310 & 308 (310)
  
  Hard to measure but the damper brackets appeared to be positioned the right distance back from the front upper brackets.

Rear suspension p49

• Upper wishbone brackets = 604 apart (602)
• Lower wishbone brackets couldn't measure but the rails they were attached to were correct, and the brackets all looked laser cut and were identical, so I assume they were correct to each other at least.
  
• Upper lengths apart = 221 & 220 (222)
• Lower lengths apart = 314 & 316 (318)
  
  Still need to find a way to measure the top damper brackets.

I've not checked the actual squareness of the rails to one another, that's my job for tonight.


As to the professional welding: At least 3 different welders have waved a torch over it at different times. The person I bought it off welded some of the TT panels on around the drivers foot well, his style has lots of splatter and lots of blobby spots, no continuous runs. Another style looks ok but is rather blobbly too, mostly on the transmission tunnel. The other, presumably the oldest as they make up the bulk of the welds on the chassis that isn't transmission tunnel is really good MIG work.

The worst part of it though is that I'm not confident that I could do much better than welder no. 2 if I were to start again from scratch!

I do need to do some modification to the chassis, as the diff I've got has an offset input and needs different mountings to the Sierra diff the chassis has been built for.

I'll post up the squarness tomorrow, but first thoughts on the dimensions, particularly the suspension?