My 1972 TR6 Project Car - Chassis

Interested in hearing about my first restoration/project car? If you are thinking of getting a project, maybe doing some resto, have a read of this to broaden your horizons and see just what is in store!

This post will cover the work I have done on the chassis, I will probably do some more posts on suspension, engine, bodywork etc. as and when I have done the work!

(FYI this will probably be a long post, so if tl;dr go to my profile and scroll the pictures, most of what I post there is the work I do on cars)

First Impressions

This is the first I saw of my 1972 Triumph TR6 after my parents took delivery of it in November 2014. A bucket of rust, with an engine lying in there. The other components were upstairs in the loft of the garage including but not limited to:

Interior
Fuel Tank
Electrics / Loom
Absolutely everything you need to build a TR6 other than a drivetrain and chassis

First thing was to remove the body to see what I was working with, I took the body off using a newly installed 2 post lift. The lift was surprisingly cheap (in the grand scheme of things) and was certainly a worthy investment. If you are thinking of doing a restoration, forking out for a ramp will be the least of your monetary problems (as I soon found out), so as a piece of advice if you have the space and the cash, a lift is invaluable.

One very rusty chassis...

Once the body was off what remained was a fairly rusty chassis and drivetrain. The clock said 38000 miles, whether that was 138000 and the clock had rolled over, or a genuine low milage engine was sitting there was not of concern at the time, but I will get to that) As you can see the engine is now gone as is the majority of everything. I left the front wheels on so that I could move the car about easily and also because those front springs were rather daunting for a 19 year old first time restorer!

First things to check were chassis alignment and metal condition, then begin to build a list of things needed to restore it.

Some of the metal was absolutely fine with only surface rust, other areas were very bad indeed and needed replacing. I build my chassis from sheet metal (with a few exceptions) as to save on cost, and also I used a higher grade and galvanised steel for increased strength.

My fixing method

After a very short amount of time indeed, it soon became (and still is) my persuasion to remove any thin metal, and completely rebuild the area with brand new steel. Anyone who has tried welding rust will surely agree with me that it is more trouble than it is worth and just easier to remove all dud metal and make new.

In this picture, I lost 2 sides of the section that made the chassis, in order to reinforce it I used a shallow channel of steel fitted to the internal sizes of the existing chassis section, and then pressed/hammered them into place. The 2 pieces of steel seen above extend for another 20cm further into the chassis for increased strength. I then welded it all up and repeated.

Self Fabrication

This is a pile of metal. Not just any pile of metal however, this pile of metal is entirely fabricated from scratch to serve as replacement parts for the chassis (with the exceptions of the bolts in the middle, but those don’t count right?). You would be surprised what you can achieve with a grinder, welder and a hammer. I would seriously advise making your own metal components if the fine aesthetic finish isn’t critical as it will save you a lot of money.

Here are some summary images of the chassis work, as well as it all painted up. Some of the design is altered from the original for increased strength, but largely it is all stock. I have also completed the work on suspension restoration, so if this goes down well I will do a post on that next.

Some of the tools that were invaluable to me are:

1) MIG Welder
2) Angle Grinder (using 1mm discs)

These 2 tools accounted for 95% of the work done on this chassis. I can not say enough how useful these are for anyone fabricating metal parts. They are mostly useful because of their versatility, the grinder can achieve almost any degree of metal shaping and cutting, without the use of an expensive and sizeable guillotine. The welder is obviously the way you fix all these parts together, and seriously, they are not too difficult to use/learn. The initial investment is a bit of a jump, but after an afternoon of twiddling and setting up you will be away. I have used the welder I bought for this project for so many other things as well, it just keeps proving itself a worthy investment.

Materials:

1) Sheet metal. A lot of this metal was bent for me into certain sizes that would fit the chassis, the rest was just flat sheet. The total cost for the metal and the bending was £200 ($300) which is very reasonable for the amount I used (I still have lots left over that I am using for other things as well). All in all I probably used £150 worth of the metal.

2) Chassis specific parts. Some of the metal was too complex for me to make myself due to strengthening ribs etc. I spent £130 ($200) on these parts as they would have taken me weeks to make properly and accurately.

3) Argon/CO2 gas. The gas for the welding was considerable due to the amount of welding done. At £30 a bottle this is definitely something you need to consider. I used 2 bottles so £60 worth.

4) MIG Wire. I used just over a roll of wire for this so I suppose that is fairly efficient.

5) Paint. A big tin of paint.

All in all, I think for relatively few materials, I achieved a fair amount of work for a very low price, and the chassis is both strong and straight (we laser aligned the chassis and we are about 3mm out across the corners which is insignificant). If you have the time I definitely recommend doing some of this work yourself, it becomes quite fun once you have removed the rust!