frame damage from bump in the road (large pictures

[mkoch1]

Didn't realize it till last night, but when driving on sunday I went over a spot in the road that had a large lip from them doing construction, did not see it because of the car infront of me. I felt the car hit, but it just felt like it bottomed out. This should be fun to repair. Any suggestion other than cutting the peice out and replacing it with new tubing?

[pic]http://www.markkoch.net/images/frameDamage/1.jpg[/pic]
[pic]http://www.markkoch.net/images/frameDamage/2.jpg[/pic]
[pic]http://www.markkoch.net/images/frameDamage/3.jpg[/pic]
[pic]http://www.markkoch.net/images/frameDamage/4.jpg[/pic]

mark

[steve_d]

Looks to me as if your arrangement and pan depth didn't realy need it to be so low.
If so then you may get away with one tube, with the ends closed, welded directly to the underside of the main rails.
This should be fairly simple to do after the wreckage has been cleared and tidied.

Steve

[BliarOut]

I would be inclined to send the pictures to the council. They have a duty to maintain the roads and as such should cough up for repairs... All IMHO of course

[aidy_t]

Am I right in thinking thats the brake pipework that could have been ripped out ? Is that the stock factory routing?

Ade

[USCANAM]

Mark
You have no choice but to fabricate a new piece. I would then have the piece powdercoated except for about 1" from the ends where it will be welded back to the frame. Then you can prime and paint the welded area.
Jack

[Alan 2]

mkoch1 said:

Didn't realize it till last night, but when driving on sunday I went over a spot in the road that had a large lip from them doing construction, did not see it because of the car infront of me. I felt the car hit, but it just felt like it bottomed out. This should be fun to repair. Any suggestion other than cutting the peice out and replacing it with new tubing? mark

I've always been very conscious of the vulnerability of this particular part of the chassis and thought long and hard about going dry sump with my GTR build so that I could install a much shallower sump (oil pan) and eliminate the need for this "stepped" cross member altogether. The factory said that a chassis brace at this point was necessary from the standpoint of tortional stiffness but with a shallow sump, it could, of course, be a straight brace rather than a "stepped" one. In the end I decided to go for the standard wet sump set-up but I have just bought a large piece of 5mm thick aluminium plate (£40 on e-bay) and am just about to fabricate a skid plate/sump guard. Hopefully, if I ever hit whatever it was that Mark hit, then I should skate over it. Having said all that, I have the "stepped" cross member on my Sports and haven't hit anything in 6 years. Hope I'm not tempting providence.

[gtrclive]

Ouch...

I would cut it out, then weld 10mm plate near to the outer chassis, the make a removeable piece that bolts to the 10mm plate. But if you do this make sure you use 2 bolts each side of the rail, as 1 bolt each side can twist and therefore will not help the torsional ridgeidity....

I think Pee has already do this...

[pee]

Just cut it out and replace it with a cross brace. The pictures you sent in just about sums up what it does anyway. Try to get it as straight across as poss so it will help with the load paths of the wishbones.

Cheers Pee

[marky p]

Mark

If you look at the tube you can see it has broken at each welded point, if you do decide to weld a new tube in leave the weld on the tube and don't grind it back.

Cheers.

[layada]

Is there a owner 'tried and tested' dry sump set-up for the sport/spyder - so this bar can be eliminated?

Seen some interesting Canton sumps but dont wish to reinvent the wheel if its all been done before.

[nickmpower]

I have been worried about this happening to ours. We have a dty sumped oul pan so i think we could just cut it off and weld a straight bar across, instead of the lowered one?

[B1 ECC]

I use a Canton dry sump pan with a Petersen three stage pump, the tank is from the Factory and is a good item as it fits the chassis. I use -12 supply pipes and -16 returns = peace of mind!
The two dropped crossmembers on my car were cut out and replaced with straight sections, floor was then skinned in aluminium.

[layada]

I have the Canton catalogue - do you have a part number or description for the pan.. they have a fair few of them!

[B1 ECC]

layada said:

I have the Canton catalogue - do you have a part number or description for the pan.. they have a fair few of them!

The Part no might not help as i'm running a Ford Motor, but what I can do to-morrow is measure the depth of the pan, the Chevy and the Ford sit in the same proximity, in fact i think the Ford sits a little lower so you should have no clearance problems

[ultimacz]

Mark,
I would fabricate a removable piece and screw it on. At least in my application, whenever we had to remove the oilpan the engine had to go out, which is a pain. If this part is removable the engine can stay in. We were tempted already several times to cut this piece out and replace it but because it is (so far) undamaged we left it.
Peter

[mkoch1]

My friend Brain welded up the new fix. You can see it added some more piping to help project the oil pan incase it ever bottoms out again. Now it should skid over road obstacles instead of catching on them. For those of you who haven't already fitted the engine it may be something you want to add just for extra insurance.





mark

[peterpsg]

That looks a bit healthier!

Did you have to take the engine out to do the work or did you just jack it up...?

[mkoch1]

peterpsg said:

That looks a bit healthier! Did you have to take the engine out to do the work or did you just jack it up...?

My friend did all the fabing / welding from underneath with the engine and everything in place. All I did was paint it.

mark

[gtrclive]

Good news, when are you doing the first rally-cross event then ???