Managed to spend a "whole" couple of hours on the vehicle this week and some of that was cutting bits off the old chassis (still haven't found any rot)! 
Fitted my new sidebars which were "forced" upon me as my faithful Bearmach ones don't fit the Richards chassis. Decided to go for ones with tree sliders to give added protection to my new doors (people just don't care in Tesco's carpark!). Actually they are quite good as they act as a bit of a step and when they have dulled down they won't look quite so blingy.
Other than that I spent a few minutes cutting some more sections off the old chassis (using a hacksaw at the moment to keep the noise down, will use my angle-grinder when I get to the deep chassis sections & crossmembers and can do it during the working day rather than a weekend).
Still no rust in the main chassis members, just some dry mud and a perfectly painted internal section. Cut off the tubular outriggers and they were the same. Sure I will find some rust at some point, the rear crossmember is definitely past its prime.
One thing I can say has served its purpose very well is the Waxoyl coating (most of which has been on for 20-years). Still stuck firmly to the chassis and when it is scraped off there is no sign of corrosion under the coating.
Fitted my new sidebars which were "forced" upon me as my faithful Bearmach ones don't fit the Richards chassis. Decided to go for ones with tree sliders to give added protection to my new doors (people just don't care in Tesco's carpark!). Actually they are quite good as they act as a bit of a step and when they have dulled down they won't look quite so blingy.
Other than that I spent a few minutes cutting some more sections off the old chassis (using a hacksaw at the moment to keep the noise down, will use my angle-grinder when I get to the deep chassis sections & crossmembers and can do it during the working day rather than a weekend).
Still no rust in the main chassis members, just some dry mud and a perfectly painted internal section. Cut off the tubular outriggers and they were the same. Sure I will find some rust at some point, the rear crossmember is definitely past its prime.
One thing I can say has served its purpose very well is the Waxoyl coating (most of which has been on for 20-years). Still stuck firmly to the chassis and when it is scraped off there is no sign of corrosion under the coating.
Was off the other day so spent a couple of hours cutting up the old chassis, amazed at the LACK of rust - DIY chassis kit anyone?
I thought that it might not be too bad as it looked perfectly sound when I cut off the front chassis leg (containing the chassis number) a few weeks ago. This section I am keeping, it will be taken back to bare metal, painted and put on a shelf in the garage.(sad or wot!).
Most of the surface rust has appeared since I cut it up and it has been stacked up outside in the rain, also where I have been attacking it at various locations to check the quality of the Waxoyl underseal (which is excellent) and also the condition of the metal underneath.
Was worried about the rear crossmember as the lower edge was starting to bulge but I cut the tapered ends off (to reduce the width) and it was solid all the way through with nothing corroding inside the main box section near the tow point mountings or by the tubular jacking points.
Main chassis rails are sound with most sections still showing the internal paint finish and / or remains of my internal Waxoyl treatment I applied many years ago. There is some muck at the lower points but not very much and certainly not enough to form localised arears of damp which of course then lead to rotting from the inside out.
Outriggers are perfectly solid as is the centre crossmember, in fact the internal Waxoyl is clearly visible at this point and the notorious moisture traps on the top of the chassis are perfectly solid.
Some rust had formed behind the rear shock mountings but this cleans off and just needed re-painting. Under the bump-stops was perfectly sound and no rust had formed between the bump-stop plate and the bottom of the chassis.
When I set out to do the job I knew it wasn't bad and as I said before, it had never been welded in its 34-year life but I thought that one day it would start to need attention and I wanted to do the job before this became necessary (and I reached the stage where I didn't want to do it myself). With hindsight I can now see that this day was still many years off and perhaps with just a clean and scrape of the old Waxoyl underseal it could have been smartened up, re-undersealed (with a small amount of welding to the rear crossmember of course) and seen another decade before any further work was required.
I was always very particular about keeping the chassis clean and I regularly spent 15-minutes just cleaning the chassis with a hosepipe both inside & out (it has never been anywhere near a pressure-washer). I think it shows that if you look after yours chassis, it will look after you.
Of course my other reason for doing it was to get rid of the kink in the O/S front chassis leg. It happened when in service and although it tracked ok and steered straight it never sat correctly with the O/S wing being high and adjustment required to the inner wings & front-panel (more than is usual). The biggest giveaway was the front bumper as the O/S sat higher and the difference in gap along the bottom edge of the wings & front-panel was quite noticeable.
Anyway, done now and all ready to go down the scrapyard.
Luckily in its current form it will fit easily into the back of the 90.
I thought that it might not be too bad as it looked perfectly sound when I cut off the front chassis leg (containing the chassis number) a few weeks ago. This section I am keeping, it will be taken back to bare metal, painted and put on a shelf in the garage.(sad or wot!).
Most of the surface rust has appeared since I cut it up and it has been stacked up outside in the rain, also where I have been attacking it at various locations to check the quality of the Waxoyl underseal (which is excellent) and also the condition of the metal underneath.
Was worried about the rear crossmember as the lower edge was starting to bulge but I cut the tapered ends off (to reduce the width) and it was solid all the way through with nothing corroding inside the main box section near the tow point mountings or by the tubular jacking points.
Main chassis rails are sound with most sections still showing the internal paint finish and / or remains of my internal Waxoyl treatment I applied many years ago. There is some muck at the lower points but not very much and certainly not enough to form localised arears of damp which of course then lead to rotting from the inside out.
Outriggers are perfectly solid as is the centre crossmember, in fact the internal Waxoyl is clearly visible at this point and the notorious moisture traps on the top of the chassis are perfectly solid.
Some rust had formed behind the rear shock mountings but this cleans off and just needed re-painting. Under the bump-stops was perfectly sound and no rust had formed between the bump-stop plate and the bottom of the chassis.
When I set out to do the job I knew it wasn't bad and as I said before, it had never been welded in its 34-year life but I thought that one day it would start to need attention and I wanted to do the job before this became necessary (and I reached the stage where I didn't want to do it myself). With hindsight I can now see that this day was still many years off and perhaps with just a clean and scrape of the old Waxoyl underseal it could have been smartened up, re-undersealed (with a small amount of welding to the rear crossmember of course) and seen another decade before any further work was required.
I was always very particular about keeping the chassis clean and I regularly spent 15-minutes just cleaning the chassis with a hosepipe both inside & out (it has never been anywhere near a pressure-washer). I think it shows that if you look after yours chassis, it will look after you.
Of course my other reason for doing it was to get rid of the kink in the O/S front chassis leg. It happened when in service and although it tracked ok and steered straight it never sat correctly with the O/S wing being high and adjustment required to the inner wings & front-panel (more than is usual). The biggest giveaway was the front bumper as the O/S sat higher and the difference in gap along the bottom edge of the wings & front-panel was quite noticeable.
Anyway, done now and all ready to go down the scrapyard.
Luckily in its current form it will fit easily into the back of the 90.
Dr Strangeglove
Well-Known Member
Are you going to put wax inside the galv chassis now?
pushmi-pullu
Well-Known Member
Great thread and very informative. Well done.
"Are you going to put wax inside the galv chassis now?"
Quite possibly but only because I have a compressor, the attachments to do the long chassis sections (I did my old one 20-years ago) and a couple of tins of Waxoyl. Completely over the top on a galvanised chassis but as I say, it is not my top priority but it will give me something to do one warm weekend.
I internally Waxoyled my galvanised bulkhead & galvanised front doors, I just love to see the stuff oozing out of the gaps!
Quite possibly but only because I have a compressor, the attachments to do the long chassis sections (I did my old one 20-years ago) and a couple of tins of Waxoyl. Completely over the top on a galvanised chassis but as I say, it is not my top priority but it will give me something to do one warm weekend.
I internally Waxoyled my galvanised bulkhead & galvanised front doors, I just love to see the stuff oozing out of the gaps!
One last update.
Carried out the final act today, loaded up the old chassis into the back of the 90 and weighed it in as scrap. Added a few old nuts & bolts and odd pieces of steel that have been sitting in the shed for years while I was at it - 260KG @ £60/Tonne = £15.60.
Fitted into the back of the 90 easily (including the old fuel-tank) so it shows how it was time well spent chopping it up into manageable sections.
One thing I had been worried about (unnecessarily as it turns out) was my new rear springs.
For years I had been running Bearmach HD rears which paired with OE fronts gave it a nice tail-high stance and when heavily loaded (not a frequent occurrence but when filling the rear tub with ballast for instance!) they allowed plenty of room before the bumpstops got close to the axle. At the rebuild I decided to go for OE HD rears (RKB101240 & RKB101230) which are progressive.
When fitted, one thing that immediately struck me was that as soon as the new springs were taking the weight how much lower the rear-end sat, in fact the vehicle was level which had me wondering how it would cope with heavy loads? Anyway today I loaded up the old chassis & associated scrap (260KG) and it appears that they didn't compress at all, I kept checking the gap between the axle and the bumpstops and it looks like after the initial (soft) portion of the spring has taken the weight of the vehicle, the additional load has practically no affect on the ride height whatsoever. On the journey (about 12-miles) it handled perfectly with negligible bodyroll and no bottoming out on the (many) speedhumps between here and Milton Keynes. Coming home (empty) the ride was very comfortable and shows how good these springs are.
I am now confident about them so will adjust the lights accordingly (with the rear-end sitting lower they will be too high) and stop worrying.
Carried out the final act today, loaded up the old chassis into the back of the 90 and weighed it in as scrap. Added a few old nuts & bolts and odd pieces of steel that have been sitting in the shed for years while I was at it - 260KG @ £60/Tonne = £15.60.
Fitted into the back of the 90 easily (including the old fuel-tank) so it shows how it was time well spent chopping it up into manageable sections.
One thing I had been worried about (unnecessarily as it turns out) was my new rear springs.
For years I had been running Bearmach HD rears which paired with OE fronts gave it a nice tail-high stance and when heavily loaded (not a frequent occurrence but when filling the rear tub with ballast for instance!) they allowed plenty of room before the bumpstops got close to the axle. At the rebuild I decided to go for OE HD rears (RKB101240 & RKB101230) which are progressive.
When fitted, one thing that immediately struck me was that as soon as the new springs were taking the weight how much lower the rear-end sat, in fact the vehicle was level which had me wondering how it would cope with heavy loads?
Anyway today I loaded up the old chassis & associated scrap (260KG) and it appears that they didn't compress at all, I kept checking the gap between the axle and the bumpstops and it looks like after the initial (soft) portion of the spring has taken the weight of the vehicle, the additional load has practically no affect on the ride height whatsoever. On the journey (about 12-miles) it handled perfectly with negligible bodyroll and no bottoming out on the (many) speedhumps between here and Milton Keynes. Coming home (empty) the ride was very comfortable and shows how good these springs are.I am now confident about them so will adjust the lights accordingly (with the rear-end sitting lower they will be too high) and stop worrying.
