7: Tub B or Not Tub B

...Continued from previous page

The original tub was just sat on the “new” chassis - however, my 109 was a Station Wagon and the chassis was from a LWB pickup (no 2nd row of doors) which meant a couple of mountings were in the wrong place or not there at all…

While we're back there, the rear crossmember was a little crusty and a ready-made steel winch tray was like £35, so chop chop weld weld…

I've no real plans to drop a winch in there but it's easier to have the tray and not need it…

An extra bit of 50×50 box was welded along the back lip of the tray to add a bit more stiffness and give the fuel tank something to mount on.

It's worth noting at this stage that as well as helping me with my daft project, Jez, Vince, and Zuz were also busy planning their next outing to Trophy Raid Ladoga which meant getting “Petal”, Jez's Series IIA 88“ on portals, into the lab and also rebuilt ready to go racing… here we see things being swapped around at the lab:

And here we see a small problem with my original tub…

And here we see another small problem with my tub:

Yes, someone's dinged it (quite heavily) and fillered it… which is never going to go well on a thin aluminium panel!

Oh and the floor supports were quite crusty too…

Add to that the crusty B-pillar and C-pillar bottoms and we've got some work to do!

But this is a classic restoration, damnit! So I want to keep as many original bits as I can… plus this is a CSW tub and the only other tub I have is the LWB one so there's more than a few differences.

Anyway, I drilled out all the spot-welds holding the tub sides on:

Using a machine-mart spot-weld drill which worked surprisingly well once you got the hang of it.

One trip to the junk field with a battery-powered sabre saw later…

And we've got two tub-shaped sides that need trimming down to size:

Now here's where I got a bit cute… the CSW tub has an infill piece at the bottom of the C-pillar, like this:

But I had enough “side” to make it all in one like this:

That'll confound the rivet counters!

Meanwhile the rotten bases of the C-pillars were re-made:

The new sides were carefully ham-fistedly bent over with a hammer…

It turns out that CSW B-pillars and side sills are one huge piece and not available any more, or if they are they're £250+ per side which is ridickerous.

So… new sills were made from 25×25 box section;

These slot into the (now cut-off and restored) B-pillars and then bolt up, along with new braces to the back of the seatbox:

This whole setup is (I think) nicer and stronger than the original LR style - certainly it's no worse and the sill is a smaller separate part.

With the bulkhead AND a B-pillar we can throw a door in the hole, woo!

And here's the underneath of the tub with shiny new supports - the CSW-specific long one at the front we ended up fabricating because they weren't available:

Get that MOT booked!

Onwards to What Happens Next Will Shock You!