Removal Of The Rear Cross Member

Another weekend of work on the cross member.

I finished up a few items of welding and then test fitted the newly delivered drop plate for the tow bar.

 

Next task was to weld in some crush tubes into the ends of the cross member where the rear steps will be located. The holes were widened to take the steel tube.
 

They were then welded into place

Once all the welds were complete they where ground down to be flush and the cross member and then were polished up - nice and shiny.

Now on to the actual replacement - firstly I made a jig to aid locating the new member. At this point I also pulled the bunch of cables which runs through the chassis so they where away from the heat produced by cutting and welding. I attached a cable to them so they can be pulled back.

 

The I set about removing the old cross member - at this point the plasma cutter tip ran out so I got out the 12 inch grinder and had to remove the jig. Its position was marked before removal so I should be able to get it back into the same place without a problem.

Some bits needed a little persuading, so a more persuasive tool was used.

The old cross member is off (took a while). This revealed some not so cleaver looking chassis ends.

So the rotten sections were cut out and the metal cleaned up ready for welding.

And new sections welded into place. The next stage will be to weld the new cross member onto the chassis. I will be welding in more reinforcement to ensure that the join is strong.

At the end of the day I had just finished repairing the chassis ends. I dummy fitted the new cross member and it looks quite smart.