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straighten the chassis
This might be a bit of a naive question, but isn't a straight chassis the main thing you need from a project car? or is correcting it an easy thing to do (and what's the method)?
I reckon it will be pretty rad when done. Liking this style:
hugo7-
This might be a bit of a naive question, but isn't a straight chassis the main thing you need from a project car? or is correcting it an easy thing to do (and what's the method)?
Not necessarily. A chassis can be the most important bit, or it can be pretty easy to replace. Depends on the vehicle. In this case I'm assuming the chassis is pretty agricultural, so fixing it should be fairly easy.
If it's a monocoque then straightening the chassis will usually involve tying bits of it down to a very heavy thing and then using hydraulic rams to move the bits which aren't where they should be into the correct place.
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It's not terribly out of square. You can see in the photos that it's had a head-on collision with a tree, and the front is slightly bent-in. This bent the front cross member, and essentially made the front of the car slightly narrower. All I'm going to do is cut this out, and weld in a new, straight bit of box, the right length, making sure the wings line up with the rest of the body. The rest of the chassis is straight and solid. Only found one little hole, which will be easy to overplate. The sills are all good. The only serious rust is in the wheel arches, but all easy enough to get to and repair.
@NurseHolliday 'proper job', I suppose. Going to remove the rubbing strips and bumpers, straighten out the creased bonnet (if I can't find a straight replacement), and fabricate a valance panel with an integrated grille, to replace the front bumper and existing valance panel, which is pretty mangled. Going to fair this into the wings, to give a seamless look. Obviously a full respray too.Using this mk1 brat as my inspiration (I know it's never going to be this pretty, but it's just an example of the style/ technique).
Brommers
Sam_Doman
It's probably hard for most people to get excited by such a mangled, rusty pickup, which wasnt ever particularly good looking or quick when it was new, but I have a vision... This 1989 subaru brat is the basis for my next project... Lots of bodywork to do, after I straighten the chassis. I'll follow this with some good old fashioned, naturally aspirated, carburetor, 1800, flat 4 tuning. Don't have time for my serious engine work yet, but that will be another project for the future (or maybe a conversion to an ej257 or similar). Just want to get it straight, looking good, and on the road again for now, as it seems mechanically solid.