| After looking at the chassis I decided to remove
the top plate to give access to the inside of the chassis. This is where the rust starts.
To do this I bought a spot weld drill. By finding the spot welds and marking them with a
centre punch they could be drilled out. |
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| The side members wrap round the edges of the top
sheet flange. Suprisingly they are not welded to the top. Hammering a screwdriver under
them they could be lifted. |
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| The diagram shows that the spot weld must have
been made first then the flange folded over. |
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| So I ground of the outer edge and they dropped
off. |
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| Underneath was a good rust trap! I was thinking
that I could replace the top plate once I had repaired inside. But the rust at the edges
meant a new plate. |
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| The spot welds were easy to drill out. The
technique is to drill just throught the top plate and leave the bottom plate intact.
Jamming a screwdriver between the sheets meant that the plates sprung apart as soon as the
drill was through the top one. |
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| Eventually all the welds were broken. |
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| The top plate was lifted off and the inside of
the chassis could be inspected. It looked pretty good. |
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| The inside of the top plate was alright except
for some rust where the flange was folded over. |
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