The Front Chassis Restoration

From early August John from AJ Restorations started to work on the front chassis sections that needed to be repaired. Thankfully he had good weather in nearly all the 28 days that he had the car and spent approximately 35 hours on the restoration (between other better paying work). First he started on the off side section and cut out from the front right back to the cross member supporting the engine. He only went half way up the chassis leg, retaining the bumper mounts, as the top part was in good condition. He also ground off the old ‘repair’ plates that had been wrapped around and welded over the old corrosion.

And so it continued, with me popping back each week to see the progress made. It was during the first week that John advised that the area behind the front valance be sorted out while the car was up and being cut about and I agreed for this work to be done – it obviously added to the overall cost but a saving in the long term. From the photos you can see the level of corrosion on the lower part of the valance and later found it had a patch panel put over the top of rusty metal again. True to his word, John worked slowly but meticulously to restore the chassis legs to a factory finish. He said the hardest part was grinding and cutting out the corrosion and going right back up to the cross member without having to remove it. He removed an earlier ‘repair’ that had a welded plate from the chassis to the cross member!

As can be seen, John did a sterling job and had the luxury of great August weather and time to do a bit here and there. So it is back to me to Waxoyl the new work before I put the radiator/electric fan and bumper back on.

I hope to update the images, as John has some on his phone that I haven’t retrieved at the time of writing. Thanks for reading.

Dom

Updated images [29 Sep 2016]:

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