Hello all & happy Holidays!
Finally got my TR250 up on jack stands to get a good look at my new acquisition over Christmas. (I paid short enough money for it & it ran well that I didn't lift it to do a chassis inspection when I bought it). Anyway I had spotted some areas of concern during my purchase & of course now have banged & scraped almost every inch of the chassis & sprayed red paint on the areas of concern. Here's the initial prognosis: Front end was quite good with only a little noticable rust 6" back from the rear "A" arm mount. Center of chassis & diff mount were nice and solid (fortunately). The bad news: there are a couple of 6-8" long areas on the bottom frame rails at the rear of the chassis. None of these are too close to any suspension mounting points, so that is good news anyway. So; now my dilema. I don't want to do a frame up, but the car will prob. need a rebuild on the tranny (2nd gear pops out) and the inner fenders are kinda rough. Oil pressure decent with 70-90 cold & 30-50 hot at idle. Entire front end was rebuilt including brakes, electrics are good & interior/floors are good. So: Has anyone lifted the entire body off, sans hood & trunk & exposed the chassis to allow full inspection, repair, rustproofing? Seeing as how the body probably only has 20-25 points where it is bolted to the chassis plus steering & some wiring I would prefer to make sure I have a good solid foundation to drive the car with & work on the exterior body panels as time allows. I owned a 1973 Series Land Rover and altough it had an aluminum body the chassis was so rusted that it became unsafe to drive! The fortunate thing with the Rover was you could purchase a brand new galvanised chassis for about $1800.
Anyway, sorry so long winded, but would like some input from someone who may have gone this route.
[ 12-31-2003: Message edited by: gjh ]</p>
Finally got my TR250 up on jack stands to get a good look at my new acquisition over Christmas. (I paid short enough money for it & it ran well that I didn't lift it to do a chassis inspection when I bought it). Anyway I had spotted some areas of concern during my purchase & of course now have banged & scraped almost every inch of the chassis & sprayed red paint on the areas of concern. Here's the initial prognosis: Front end was quite good with only a little noticable rust 6" back from the rear "A" arm mount. Center of chassis & diff mount were nice and solid (fortunately). The bad news: there are a couple of 6-8" long areas on the bottom frame rails at the rear of the chassis. None of these are too close to any suspension mounting points, so that is good news anyway. So; now my dilema. I don't want to do a frame up, but the car will prob. need a rebuild on the tranny (2nd gear pops out) and the inner fenders are kinda rough. Oil pressure decent with 70-90 cold & 30-50 hot at idle. Entire front end was rebuilt including brakes, electrics are good & interior/floors are good. So: Has anyone lifted the entire body off, sans hood & trunk & exposed the chassis to allow full inspection, repair, rustproofing? Seeing as how the body probably only has 20-25 points where it is bolted to the chassis plus steering & some wiring I would prefer to make sure I have a good solid foundation to drive the car with & work on the exterior body panels as time allows. I owned a 1973 Series Land Rover and altough it had an aluminum body the chassis was so rusted that it became unsafe to drive! The fortunate thing with the Rover was you could purchase a brand new galvanised chassis for about $1800.
Anyway, sorry so long winded, but would like some input from someone who may have gone this route.
[ 12-31-2003: Message edited by: gjh ]</p>