Chassis Refurbishment

Part 3, going back together........

All the plain aluminium panels have now been powder coated, including even the smaller items such as the pedal box cover and smaller front bulkhead items.

Any drillings and small necessary bends in the panels are made prior to powder coating to ensure no damage to the finish during refitting.

To enable wax to be injected inside the chassis tubes, it is necessary to use a nozzle that will be a good fit in the rivet holes, ie. 4mm. This is easily achieved by removing the "nail" from a new rivet and trimming the rivet to fit in the wax sprayer.

It is not ideal to inject wax into the chassis tubes prior to fitting the panels, due to the massive number of holes that would just allow the wax to run out. But by refitting the panels using only every second rivet, it is possible to then apply the wax.

Any panels fitted with rivets from beneath the car such as the floors have had all the rivets fitted before waxing.

Bulkhead and heater tray fitted - now it's starting to look a little more functional ......

But there's always further work to do. The much altered wiring is carefully unwrapped, checked, changed if necessary and then re-wrapped with new loom tape. Any additions to the wiring that are to remain are carefully integrated as if an original part of the loom.

With the powder coated lower-bulkhead panel fitted, the chassis plate is cleaned and refitted. Now it's starting to look a little more finished!

(back to the paint shop)

(back to part 1)

(back to part 2)