.....TVR and the case of the disappearing chassis......

[Al 450]

BagOfOldRats said:

Having recently been told that my Chimaera is going to need the outriggers replaced at some point (not much of a surprise to me to be honest) it got me thinking about this for all TVRs.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my TVR but one thing I think is pretty unforgiveable of TVR is the following:

A) By the time they were manufacturing Chimaeras, Griffs and Cerberas they must have been fully aware that the chassis is a weak point and really should have done something about it.

B) Why on earth didn't they offer an option to new TVR buyers to pay extra for a galvanised chassis?

Also, was the chassis treatment changed for the speed six cars? were they galvanized? Or can these owners expect all the fun that the Rover V8 car owners are now having?

A) A good question when other low volume manufacturers treat their chassis differently with better results.

B) Because it would look like A) was true.

C) Almost certainly as much fun I would have thought.

It is annoying, and what makes it worse is that it wouldn't have cost much more to properly protect the chassis at first saving so much cost and hassle now. I think that the answer is TVR really wasn't thinking about the customer in 5 years time.

[pwd95]

The powder coating on the 90's TVR's is crap compared to the 80's Wedges. I've scraped & treated three Wedges now before my Griff & the powder coating on the Griff is paper thin by comparison, quite startling.

I'm sure if a company started manufacturing Chim/Griff chassis at a reasonable price they'd make a few bob.

Edited by pwd95 on Sunday 13th April 23:06

[anonymous-user]

pwd95 said:

The powder coating on the 90's TVR's is crap compared to the 80's Wedges. I've scraped & treated three Wedges now before my Griff & the powder coating on the Griff is paper thin by comparison, quite startling.

I'm sure if a company started manufacturing Chim/Griff chassis at a reasonable price they'd make a few bob.

Edited by pwd95 on Sunday 13th April 23:06

I completely agree. I had a wedge and an S2 prior to the Chim. The wedge had minor corrosion and the S2 still had all it's original coating intact. Neither had been waxoiled, etc

On comparism my Chim's chassis has been completley waxoiled by a specialist a few years back. Only after scraping off some of the waxoil could I see that the outriggers are going.

[JR]

BagOfOldRats said:

A) By the time they were manufacturing Chimaeras, Griffs and Cerberas they must have been fully aware that the chassis is a weak point and really should have done something about it.

A) By the time they were manufacturing V6 Tuscans they must have been fully aware that the chassis is a weak point and really should have done something about it.

[rev-erend]

Personally I think TVR did a great job for the price..

How long is reasonable..

Just take a think how old the cars are that are failing - most are around 14 years old - which I think is excellent.

I think it's true that the wedge chassis used thicker steel and does in places last longer but the chassis was made physically stronger with more tubes in the Griff onwards but the tubes were thinner so that the weight and handling stayed similar. There are also less rust traps on the Griff onwards chassis ..

Go buy another british car and then you can really complain about rust

[red griff roger]

rev-erend said:

Go buy another british car and then you can really complain about rust

In my youth I drove a Triumph Spitfire. That dissolved faster than it went. There were a number of panels that were specifically designed (I think) to rot quickly - like under the headlights, the sills, wheel arches. In fact, all of it.

[Brummmie]

Scary enough for ya!?

[IanMack]

pwd95 said:

The powder coating on the 90's TVR's is crap compared to the 80's Wedges. I've scraped & treated three Wedges now before my Griff & the powder coating on the Griff is paper thin by comparison, quite startling.

I'm sure if a company started manufacturing Chim/Griff chassis at a reasonable price they'd make a few bob.

Edited by pwd95 on Sunday 13th April 23:06

Its deffinatly not powder coat. Or it might be but the way it was applied or the way the chassis was not prepared correctly before the aplication, means it doesn't appear to have the strengths that powder coat has. The scariest part is your chassis may appear to be pefectly solid from underneath, but could have big holes on the top of the rails.

[JR]

IanMack said:

Its deffinatly not powder coat. Or it might be...

Don't tell me: you used to be indecisive but you're not sure now.



They were powder coated when new.

[Hut49]

pwd95 said:

I'm sure if a company started manufacturing Chim/Griff chassis at a reasonable price they'd make a few bob.

The problem with handbuilt cars is that the bodywork of each car along the production "line" will have been adapted to the dimensions of the chassis (with all the probably wide tolerances that were inherent in that). The result is that fitting your existing bodywork to a new chassis isn't going to be as simple as it might on the surface appear. Or to put it another way, if you think the panel fit on most TVRs is piss poor, wait until you've seen one that's had a new chassis

[IanMack]

JR said:

IanMack said:

Its deffinatly not powder coat. Or it might be...

Don't tell me: you used to be indecisive but you're not sure now.



They were powder coated when new.

No, I know they weren't correctly powder coated

[rev-erend]

Hut49 said:

pwd95 said:

I'm sure if a company started manufacturing Chim/Griff chassis at a reasonable price they'd make a few bob.

The problem with handbuilt cars is that the bodywork of each car along the production "line" will have been adapted to the dimensions of the chassis (with all the probably wide tolerances that were inherent in that). The result is that fitting your existing bodywork to a new chassis isn't going to be as simple as it might on the surface appear. Or to put it another way, if you think the panel fit on most TVRs is piss poor, wait until you've seen one that's had a new chassis

Aparently Multipart will be remaking these chassis again soon (3 months) - they are made on a Jig so should match the original.

[JR]

rev-erend said:

Hut49 said:

The problem with handbuilt cars is that the bodywork of each car along the production "line" will have been adapted to the dimensions of the chassis (with all the probably wide tolerances that were inherent in that).

Aparently Multipart will be remaking these chassis again soon (3 months) - they are made on a Jig so should match the original.

Yep. Whereas there are variations in body size, the chassis are the same size and so the chassis mounting points in the body are in the same locations.

[anonymous-user]

rev-erend said:

Personally I think TVR did a great job for the price..

How long is reasonable..

Just take a think how old the cars are that are failing - most are around 14 years old - which I think is excellent.

I think it's true that the wedge chassis used thicker steel and does in places last longer but the chassis was made physically stronger with more tubes in the Griff onwards but the tubes were thinner so that the weight and handling stayed similar. There are also less rust traps on the Griff onwards chassis ..

Go buy another british car and then you can really complain about rust

I kind of agree but you could use an Lotus Elise as an example. Similar price when new, similar age and none of these are suffering from chassis rot. Also, an alarming amount of TVRs under 10 years old have had to have body off jobs.

I'm not sure what other British cars you mean, but if it's MGs, Spitfires, etc then they are from a different era altogether. I still consider a car manufactured in the 90s to be fairly modern. But it's like everything TVR really - they were all built on the cheap. IMHO of course

[Oat$y]

Have a chassis made from 316 St. Steel, no paint, no worries ever!!

[JR]

BagOfOldRats said:

I kind of agree but you could use an Lotus Elise as an example. Similar price when new, similar age and none of these are suffering from chassis rot. Also, an alarming amount of TVRs under 10 years old have had to have body off jobs.

Elise uses an alloy chassis so no rust but the bonding process makes repairs difficult and quite a few of them have had new chassis, even mkIIs. Sadly in the TVR boom years of the 1990s the large number of cars produced and sold meant that they could get away with almost anything and maybe they did.

[Pasco]

[quote=Oat$y]Have a chassis made from 316 St. Steel, no paint, no worries ever!!
[/quote]

And will cost a staggering amount me thinks

[racingsnake]

A 316 or 304 stainless steel tubular chassis would be poor in fatigue resistance, i.e. it would crack rather than rust.
Mild steel has a certain elasticity which resists cracks but the downsize is corrosion.

[Uncle Fester]

Perhaps we need to think of how to make the body quick detachable.

Suppose the first time a body was removed, a set of modifications were made to allow the body to come off, or at least up a few inches.

Not with all the time, effort and expense that this job entails at present. But so that body raising were a quick and practical option to allow easy access for service work.

Jobs that are time consuming because of poor access and therefore expensive now would become cheaper and this would allow the recovery of the inital outlay. Proper chassis cleaning, inspection and maintenance would be easy. Chassis would therefore last longer with proper maintenance.

Never having had to take off my body, I have no idea if this is achievable.

The idea of replacing the chassis outriggers in stainless steel has been mentioned before. CliveF is the man for this job. When he offers this service I think he will be very busy.

If a complete service, offering body lift, fit stainless outriggers, fit quick detach kit, overhaul rest of chassis were to be offered then it would make a car good for years. I would buy it. It would probably increase the value of the car anyway.

[Brummmie]

The fact is its not the fault of the materials, its TVR's sloppy metal preparation! The chassis does not need to be made out of anything else, just should have been properly prepped. My chassis has now been repaired, shot blasted, TWO coats of zinc primer, then powder coated over the top of this, i expect the chassis to live as long as the rest of the car. I doubt TVR even degreased the chassis, let alone shot blast.