01/28/08 – Chassis Cart/Rust Repair
I have repaired all
of the rust on
the chassis; this took a lot of welding, grinding, cutting and forming1. I built mounts
to connect
the rust free front fenders to2.
I have stripped of much of the undercoating with a combination of heat,
chemicals and scraping3.
While this all could have be avoided to a degree, my car is soon to be
far
cleaner than any other E30 I could have purchased for a reasonable
price.4
The subframes and
suspension
components have all been powdercoated.5
In order to get the
residue off the
rest of the car, I am going to return it to the blasters with the
subframes
removed such that the underbody surface of the car is 100% clean. I
will then
paint the piss out of the underside of the car.
So now the car is ready to go to the blasters, but I didn't have a good way to get it on and off the trailer, so I made this chassis dolly. The 2 pins in the rear pick up the holes for the rear subframe and the front frame rails sit on the other end of the cart. I tried it out and it works great. The casters and wheels were only 40 bucks from harbor freight, and the steel was all FREE from the scrap bin. Sorry about the poor pictures, I was planning on doing a huge picture update today, but my camera batteries died last night.
This chassis cart is a HUGE help in
the shop. The car
has been on it for a
few weeks, and it make shuffling it around in the shop so much easier. I promise I will get some
subframe pictures
up soon… That's my room mate's 1994 Lotus Esprit in the background.
(2) The original mounting points were cut off when the rust was repaired.
(3) Not enough, though… Had to scrape a lot more later.
(4) This helps me justify all the prep I put into the chassis.
(5) And look great!
