The subframes were left in for a reason, but with hindsight, we got that wrong. Hauling the car onto her side to drill the holes through the chassis is all well and good, but with a full suspension attached you can’t actually get to the chassis leg in the right spot.

 

We’re duplicating Vanessa’s solid mounts for the rear of the front subframe, and that means slicing open the chassis to weld a tube inside for the straight-through bolts that make this installation so simple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But wait, I hear you cry, JEC rules say that your subframe’s rear mounts must be original metalastic. True, they do. Work that one out for yourselves. I said there was a new plan.

Whilst the car is flipped this way up it’s time to tackle some of the additional strengthening that my design demands. Design makes it sound as if I have a plan, rather than just randomly welding in tube and braces in places that look like they might work. Some of it is obvious, the diagonals that brace radiator crossmember to the original bumper mounting tubes are blatant and aggressive in purpose and intent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some is rather more subtle, thin wall and diameter tube reinforces a few existing diagonals. Everything with a hole in it gets swaged. The massive anchor points for the front subframe are braced forward. Just a little, but it’s there.

 

Realising the error she’s put back on the floor, and in under half an hour I’ve dropped both subframes. The steering column is yanked, and both doors now come off. She is now as skinny as she’s ever going to get.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whilst on her belly, two evenings of complex – for me – fabrication and a lot of grinding make a couple of key changes under the bonnet to improve the adjustability of the suspension. Again, the crucial point is not to remove any metal. It might be a new plan, but we don’t do anything that might make her changes irreversible, she’s still that class F car at heart, and she’ll still be capable of being put back to that spec.

 

The sides of the chassis rails are sliced open and peeled open. An old and very rotten subframe is slung under the car, centralised, and then used in conjunction with the alloy spacers to drill the holes straight through the chassis. The window in the side not only allows the tube to be inserted, but also to check that the hole is drilled straight. Not easy drilling uphill with a 10mm drill, but the Bear only mutters a little about his lot in life as he wields our ancient and potent drilling machine, which was been spontaneously named Anduril.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the holes drilled, the CDS tube can be inserted into the chassis, aligned by dropping a length of 10mm screw rod through the holes with the tube twixt the pair, then tacked into place.

Without delay the car is then flipped back onto her side, and the serious welding required to firmly attach that CDS into place and then heal the chassis can now take place. It doesn’t turn out quite as neat as Vanessa’s did, though the bolt run is straighter. Swings and roundabouts I suppose. Once ground up the welding is sufficiently neat that it will all but disappear with paint, but I do worry a little that putting a three inch long heat-affected zone into one side of  the chassis leg is a bit of an issue. Bear says it's fine, and, well, he's the engineer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You get a unique perspective working on a car in this manner, it’s like having a 3D modelling program for the computer, only it’s cold and hurts you, and the opened chassis rails have ripped the back pocket off my only pair of trousers. But places to stiffen the chassis do make themselves known. I maintain that it doesn’t take much extra to make a significant difference.

If after all this we only increase rigidity by 5%, that is still a marked improvement.

 

The remarkable solidity of Vanessa as she was thrown at Cadwell park, that reassuring sense of communication and response, it is that which I’m trying to duplicate, and I’m going further with this than we did even with that car. It is how these things work, this car was done three years ago, we went further with Christine, further again with Vanessa, and this car is now the poor relation. She now gets brought up to spec, and goes further again, indeed as the Bear notes with some dismay, Christine is now the substandard machine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The chassis is sealed up, and I pull out Mr Angle Grinder, in whose company I spend a full half day attacking the underside of the car. When Helen was first built I spent 36 days welding her shell. Many of those welds were ground flat-ish but not exactly pretty, and a lot more of them have penetrated from above. The grinder and a further assault with a scurfing disc make a lot of these welds a lot prettier, and offer a chance to re-do a few that look like they may have missed their target slightly. Tiny pinholes in some joins can be sealed up. It’s a second bite of the cherry. After this orgy of grinding the floor looks like an Icelandic beach, but there is probably as much weld now on the ground as I’ve put into the car. And it’s a lot smoother under here.

 

Why do I care what the underside looks like? Because I can if I want to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The floorpan shows the wounds of a few misses with the jack, including what appears to have been an optimistic aim for the seat crossmember to pick up half the car in one go. As it turns out, there’s no need to ever do such a thing, the car is stiff enough that you pick three wheels up no matter which corner you jack her under. The damage is bashed back into shape again, the castellated floorpan is not easy to replicate with your hammer, but a series of blunt and very large chisels does an admirable job of it. Holding a huge piece of half-inch plate against the floor whilst the Bear beats the other side with a hammer and chisel is like being on the wrong end of a concussion grenade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the rebuild very much now gathering pace, it will shortly be time to think about paint. An evening with thinners and a paintbrush degreases the underside. The blue under here has that new-paint look in places. Anywhere that got a mist of oil in the car’s first few days of life is as pristine now as then. There is a lot to be said for old cars having a few deliberate oil leaks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What remains to be done under here now are two major jobs. Three if I can be bothered. One, flip her the other way and finish the welding. Two, work out how to anchor the rear subframe within the rules of class F, and make provision for it. Three, are we going to brace the shell further. Convertibles ran bracing beneath the floor to regain lost stiffness from the missing roof. No reason a racing coupe can’t accept a little similar help, so long as it doesn’t get in the way of changing a gearbox. So we can have it, but it must come out in moments. A design challenge awaits. We like those.