I now have seperated the tub from the chassis on my upside down TR3A. It
is on a homemade rotisserie (pictures forthcoming!) and with several pieces of
all-thread I lowered the body almost to the ground. Kinda cool!
However, when I was making one of Roger Williams's 'suggested improvements
to the frame' which required driving a 3/4" piece of pipe into the exisiting
rear leaf spring hanger on both sides (to give it more support). RUST SCALE
came out of the tilted (at a 30 degree angle) main chassis rails.
Previously rust had been found on both floorboards and on inner& outer
sills (and therefore all this will be replaced). For most of it's life this
car had been garaged and so these rust flakes came as somewhat of a surprise.
I would say about a cup's worth came out of each main rail and were usually
1/2" x 1/2" for the bigger flakes. I'm sure that by tapping different
sections of the rail's might produce even more scale. The integrity of the
frame is really not in question, as 'peening' areas does not yield any sign of
visable rust from the outside, nor is any difference noted in sound produced
by this tapping. These square tubes appear healthy and shiny when grinding
them. In fact, I bet many of our cars have this type rust.
The ultimate 'fix' might be powder coating or dipping in POR 15,
however, that is beyond my budget and would need to have been done earlier in
the restoration. I have wondered if it was possible to 'pull a paint-spraying
tube' through the inside of these main rails. In fact, the GA president and
several other Triumph club members viewed my project and discussed this rust
last weekend. Both 'waxoyl' and 'rustoleum' were suggested for spraying these
tubes. I had thought that waxoyl needed yearly treatments for optimum
results. I just wondered if anyone new of a better or economical method.
Looking forward to hearing from some folks.
Thanks,
Paul Dorsey
60 TR3A
|