Building your own chassis??
 

Can it be done??

Are there design's and drawings available??

I prefer the tubulare space frame desighn's rather the the box chassis.

Any thoughts??

Hi Twig,

It certainly can be done if you are a competent welder. The only problem is you would need to first construct a jig so that it all will be dead straight, obviously you would also need a good solid bench to build on that is perfectly flat and level to assist with measurements. Unless you are already set up you will probably find that by the time you got yourself set up, bought the design (if you dont do it yourself) and bought the materials you wouldnt save much money.

You will also need to have torsion and beaming testing carried out. This basically consists of a jig that mounts to the hubs or suspension mount locations. The rear is a steel beam going across the back wheels and bolted to the ground, the front is a steel beam that run across the front wheels with a pivot point in the middle. There are then about 12 dial gauges that are used to measure deflection when its loaded. An engineer observes the test and writes a report. I am in this situation and it looks like it could be up to $1000 for the testing. Some of the manufacturers provide this report with the chassis. You can take that $1000 out of what you save doing it yourself.

The other consideration is the body you are going to use will need to match the chassis design. They are not all the same.

I guess you need to price up both options and see if what you save is worth the risk of problems with it not being straight.

I havent built my own so its just my 2c. Good luck

Your right!
 

That sounds far to hard!!

I believe you can build a square flat frame with basic tools. You can do a lot with some simple tools to stay square off corners and do a lot of diagonal checking while you're tacking together. Welding needs to be done systematically and balanced for shrinkage. Avoid the temptation to blast the whole chassis out in an afternoon, weld shrinkage is bad news on chassis'. When you're done with a chassis the suspension has so much adjustment it will always align. Cobra Restorers sells a copy (albeit incomplete) of most of the critical dimensions of an original chassis. Check out the scratch builders forum on here for some good reading on it.

This site http://www.locostusa.com/ has lots of good advice including how to build a work table.

http://www.midlana.com/ This site show an almost complete scratch built car. It can be done, and my opinion is that it can be done far cheaper than purchasing a frame and components in a kit.

Twig,

Be carefull with following US plans. Our testing requirements are most likely different so i would investigate what data is available.

Liam

Puppster,

The main issue we have here Downunder is the the ADR's that govern the designs and they vary from state to state with varying levels of red tape.
In most cases the hoops you are made to jump through and the expense to perform the required testing really starts eating into the savings you make building a chassis yourself.....
.....being a ticketed welder myself and I have the necessary CAD programs I know i can do it for a fraction of the price but they really don't want you to do it yourself they want to govern it at all levels and charge you for the right!!

OZ