Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Lifting one side of the frame off of the chassis

Hi all,

I've got a 1975 4/4. It's still on its original chassis. I'm planning a re-chassis effort next year but until then I don't have the workshop space to do it right now, so my goal is to keep it safely on the road for another roughly 18 months.

The chassis is, in most places, in reasonably sound condition (albeit with a few patches from the previous owner). However, having recently removed a lever arm shock off of the drivers side, I found a sizeable piece of corrosion behind the mounting plate. Further, at the front, the top part of the Z rail has corroded where the bulkhead ends and the inner wing begins.

I would like to weld in some new plate into these areas to repair the chassis and keep her going for a while until I can do a rebuild. I have welding experience and all of the kit, however, with the ash frame being on top of the steel rail I am aware that I cannot weld with it in situ. I am loathed to go through the process of removing the whole body to make these repairs. I am rather hoping I might be able to just separate the body from the chassis on that side by 10-15mm just to give myself enough space to get welding blankets and cooling gel in so I can weld without worrying about heating the wood or sparks setting it off.

Thus, I am wondering:

1) If I can remove the inner wing without removing the outer wing (I'm guessing not)
2) If I can undo the bolts holding the ash frame to the chassis on that side and gently lift it off 10mm

Does anybody know if this is possible?

Many thanks and very best!

Yes to undo the inner wing, just unbolt it and pass it out. But clamp the cowl / cowl box to the wing if for longer period.

In theory it should be possible, but of course the risk is that when you attempt it it will lead to a cascading set of issues which will end up in a complete re-chassis project anyway.

A 1975 car is highly likely to have significant rot in the body frame, especially the rocker panels under the doors, and any attempt to lift the body from the chassis is going to result in the frame breaking and panels tearing.

If it was me and I had an 18 month wait before I could get the car into a decent space for a re-chassis project I'd be spending the time getting the bits assembled and planning the sequence of work. I was planning on doing a re-chassis project on mine some years ago but quickly realised it was going to be a huge job that I had neither the time nor space to do properly so I ended up getting Kevin Vernon to do it for me.

Following the above commets, I put myself and 1975 4/4 through a complete rebuild in the '90's. If you are finding rot in the chassis, there is more than a chance that the wooden rocker boards are suffering if you have trim covering them. I don't know if your car had been rebuilt previously? Mine hadn;t, but when these cars wee built in 1975, there was no cuprinol trearment for the frame and the inner wings were in basic primer, before they sprayed the topcoat over the wing piping. Due to the way they were built at this time, many of these cars are quite badly corroded once you start to investigate, as in, it is unlikely to be better than you expected! Good luck.

If you're deffo going for a full new chassis in the future I would advise getting an order in for the new one soon, just in case Terry retires

https://geeltd.co.uk/

Thank you all, I greatly appreciate the advice!

I removed the internal trim yesterday and removed some of the chassis bolts (I had to cut the nuts off of a couple of them) but the wood didn't look in terrible condition; though of course that doesn't tell me if its okay under the first layer or not.

I think I'm going to give it a go. Worst case scenario bad things happen and I have to delay to new chassis time, best case I can get something to work to keep me going in the mean time.

I have been working under the assumption that when it does come to new chassis time I will have to make significant repairs to the ash frame. When this inevitably occurs, are parts of the frame easily bought or is it a case of making my own? I'm guessing the cars are all a bit different so off the shelf bits probably aren't easy to come by.

Do we think it might be pertinent for me to affix supporting wooden struts across the frame when I lift it to attempt to minimise distortion and flex?

I'll give Terry a call. I didn't realise there was a risk of him retiring!

Thanks again all.

If your wood is still in one bit you can the bits as templates so everything still matches ... a local kitchen manufacturer/quality joiner copied mine having ordered up the ash .... made a grand job.

K