Body to chassis!

[lomondbob]

I need a bit of sympathy as well as help on this one. The story so far. I bought the chassis and body from a neighbour who purchased it 10 years ago. It laid in his garage subjected to 10 years of hot/cold and sunlight. I took it to Dax a few weeks ago to have existing seatbelt mounts removed and new ones (SVA friendly) added together with mounts for a single hoop. Removing the body prior to taking it down was uneventful. Following a bit of cleaning up we offered the body to chassis last night to discover it would not fit. Front OK but rear about 1 inch too high. Finally found that the hoop inner mounting tube was catching on the bulkhead. So had to remove part of the bulkhead to relieve the pressure. The tube now sticks into the cockpit by about 10mm (see pic). That helped a bit then found that one of the rear chassis horns was fouling the body. Cut about 1 cm off that which helped a bit. But the body is still proud by about 8mm on the offside. I've clamped it all down (see pic) but I do not like springing GRP. Forgot to say that I also fixed the alloy engine bay panels and even though I relieved them around the edges there may still be a blockage on offside footwell where it mets the vertical plate. Back to the body again, it looks as if the channels which locate the rear horns need shaving down a couple of mm. And the inner wings are all over the place (see pic). These will have to be twisted and tensioned to fix properly. When clamped down the front is horizontal but the offside rear is about 8mm lower than the nearside.

Does all this sound familiar? Should I be aiming to get to get the car horizontal both front and rear? Any bright ideas? Thanks.


Bob

[TINKA]

Has the body been left on or off the chassis do you know over the last 10 years. You will have to align the body to the wheels as I believe the body tends to sit slightly to one side any way. Take a vertical line from the top centre of all 4 wheel arches and measure to the centre of the wheel and adjust till you get this right. You will have to just cut off the top of the roll bar mount that is too tall, and you will probably find that if you leave the body resting on the chassis it will settle and fit fine in a couple of weeks. Good luck and enjoy the build.

[lomondbob]

Thanks Tinka.

Body was left on the chassis but still seems to taken on a shape of it own in places - footwells especially which stand above the transverse chassis members by a good half inch. I'll measure as you suggest although its probably easier to simply take a vertical measurement from top of the wheel arch to the ground (which is flat and horizontal) and then move body up/down as required. It looks like the offside dips below the nearside by about 8 mm. I do not see that I'll need to cut anything off the roll bar mounts as they both sit well below the upper surface of the body. Just need to get the holes in the right position. I will also need to fabricate a small shroud around the inside mount that now sticks through the bulkhead. Thanks for your help.


Bob

[dave]

Hi Bob.
Bodies from 10 years ago had additional mouldings to shroud the roll hoop posts if single roll hoops were fitted.
The floorpan does not touch the rear seat mounting plate (about a 5-7mm gap.
The front horn to inner wing loos like it will be fine if clamped when finally fixed.
As Tinker says you need to plumb line the 4 wheel arches to centralise the body.


Come to think of it this is all to complicated to try and explain here. Feel free to give me a call 07785 702005 before 10:00 PM and I'll talk you through any problems you're having if you like.