Your Restoration Starts Here Some Things to Consider When Working on Your Healey Chassis By Chris Rampen and Martin Jansen

he Austin Healey chassis is such is the nature of probably unique among sports rust that it usually cars- a monocoque ladder attacks the areas frame. You may have won- of highest stress dered why Healey went to the first. The number greatT expense of both stamping and seam of cars we see with welding sheet steel to recreate a simple beautiful exteriors piece of square tube. For the answer one but chassis badly must go back to post-war England- back bodged with fibre- to the era of “Export or Perish!” At that glass, bondo, tin cans time the government controlled the alloca- and other night- tion of materials and steel was hard to get mares is incredible. in any form. The form Healey got was 16 It is not surprising gauge mild steel sheet, and with that the that most of them boys went off to work. The result was the have doors, bonnets car we all know and love. and boots that don’t The passage of time haunts most close properly. Healeys on the road today. The chassis The purpose meant to flex. Without perfect rigidity the was, as it should be, a highly stress unit of this article is to show you how to do body panels will be in alignment just once- and while time has done little to the out the job right and end up with a car this the day you put them on. Even by Japanese put of the Healey’s motor the strength sweet, straight and worthy of the invest- standards the Healey is a tight fit and a testi- of the frame has surely suffered. Indeed ment of your time and money. mony to British craftsmanship. It follows that The chassis any sort of alignment is possible with a frame is meant to do two that maintains a constant shape. things: be a perfectly The alignment of the suspen- rigid frame on which sion components needs no explanation to hang the body except to add that the Healey has no and hold the drive- adjustable links- caster and camber are train and keep the set by the locations points. If your car suspension compo- steers “funny”, than look for a frame nents in alignment. that is out of shape. Similarly the drive- Those who speak train should be dead straight. While it is romantically of the true that universal joints are meant to flex of the Healey take up any mis-alignment, they run that frame are both tech- much sweeter and last longer if we can nically uniformed limit their movement to one plane. The and dangerous. Only bearings in the gearbox and differential go-karts and per- housing also suffer less. war cars with wood Any true restoration begins with the and cloth bodies are complete removal of the frame followed by judicious sandblasting. With the Healey, grinding and shrinking will add another it is important to remember that what unwanted freeze/thaw cycle into the work you don’t see is as important as what you piece. This brittleness is okay in unstressed do see, and a seemingly perfect under- body panels but is a definite no-no with a side may be dangerous to life and limb as chassis. We can, of course, hang the chassis well as the pocketbook. It is impossible in an atmospheric oven-if we can find one to do the job-as I have seen some people big enough-and stress relieve the chassis but do- without removing the front and rear that leaves us with a big pretzel and leads to bulkheads. If you farm out the job, and your the second area of concern: maintaining the panel beater thinks he can do it with bulk- alignment of the frame. heads on, go elsewhere. Putting heat into the chassis will While some people recommend distort the frame. What always amazes chemically stripping the chassis, we us is how much distortion a seemingly would not recommend this approach. insignificant weld can cause. From experi- First, it is bound to leave at least trace ence a two inch weld at one of the rear amounts of corrosive chemicals inside suspension points can cause the front of the frame- no matter how hard you the frame to move more than an inch try to neutralize the stuff. Second, it and a half- even if the frame is securely doesn’t leave the metal in as prepared clamped at the time! You can imagine the state as blasting, and third, it’s expen- warpage caused by welding in a four foot sive. Some experts may claim that section, which is why you can’t weld in a sandblasting removes too much metal four foot section. The difficulty involved but, in our opinion, if the metal disin- in this diatribe is to show that there is a tegrates upon blasting for your own rational basis on which to scrap a chassis safety, it needs to be replaced. and that, contrary to popular belief, there With the chassis stripped to bare is no such thing as a perfect chassis repair. metal, it is time to assess the damage. First It is a matter of quantifying each patch and inspect all suspension and drivetrain loca- the degree and direction of the distortion tion points for cracks. Then start tapping the caused by the work. In short, it is a suck chassis systematically with a small ball-peen –it and – see proposition and this where hammer. Healthy metal should “ring”; thin experience really counts. sections produce a dull thug. Mark out thin There are few things to say about sections with a sharpie with a respectable welding except that the main goal is always overlap into solid metal. Now is the time to to put as little heat into the frame as pos- stand back and decide if there is sufficient sible and therefore MIG welding really metal to justify a restoration. the only way to get proper penetra- Clearly, it is inevitable with cars of tion without overheating the metal. The the Healeys’ vintage that there exist many sequence of welds is similarly important in cars with chassis where there is simply no limiting distortion. For example, in welding more sound metal to weld on to. But with an outrigger you should start by diagonally the Healey with its highly stressed and tacking the four corners then lay a bead top special construction, we need more than and bottom and then either side. Having a skeleton on which to hang patches, there welded the chassis, it is time to check the are too many holes or sections too large, chassis alignment. or in highly stressed locations the chassis Unfortunately, with the Healey the will simply have to be scrapped. The rea- cheap and dirty method of bashing the sons for this are twofold and are taboo in chassis into alignment is not really appli- panel beater customer relations. cable- the structure is both too stiff and First, no matter how great the skill of too weak. Putting the chassis on a frame the panel beater, the repair will never be as straightening rig is the only real practical strong as the original chassis. Indeed, in all proposition, but it has its limits. Because the likelihood the more beautiful the repair is rig uses only a few points to react against the greater the loss of strength. The reason the part being pulled, the result is a new for this is simple- welding will harden the stress raiser. In small degrees this is toler- steel making the area brittle. The frame able, but gross misalignment of the chassis will crack again but this time two to three will leave you with considerable weakened inched-) in the quench zone)-from the weld. ‘S’ shaped rails. Again, the success of the Hammering the panel flat will work but will repair comes down to your original evalu- harden the metal further and the necessary ation of the frames repairability. an inspection by a licensed technician/ mechanic must be completed.The seller must disclose to the buyer any major struc- tural repairs done to the car prior to sale. Non-disclosure of this information could be deemed as a fraudulent act. That inspec- tion will include checking the chassis. The chassis cannot be “visibly cracked, perfo- rated by corrosion or have loose or missing connecting fasteners that may degrade the safety of the vehicle or jeopardize its han- dling characteristics..... shall not be visible perforated by rust or otherwise damaged or have any opening other than those intended by the manufacturer “( Schedule 1 -4(a),(b) of The Ontario Ministry of Transportation, Highway Traffic Act). If they do not pass, the car cannot be licensed as a safe vehicle. All licenced trade shops are aware of this rule. We urge you to discuss this with your mechanic. It would be a shame to have The completed chassis should be better value than a bodged repair. invested all your time and money to be told lightly blasted and immediately sprayed with For some this may be sacrilege, and your car had no value as it was not fit for primer, preferably zinc chromate based. we are the first to admit that the Healey’s the road. But it would be a bigger shame if What options do you have if your unique construction is a big part of its place you or your family member were hurt while chassis is beyond safe repair? You may, of in history. But it seems ludicrous and down- riding in your Austin Healey as a result of a course, try to find a better chassis or buy a right dangerous to believe that a chassis this bodged chassis repair . new chassis ready for build up. is 10% Healey and 90% patchwork and isn’t Jule Enterprises produces a chassis straight or strong is any more original than using tube identical to the original except Donald Healey’s masterpiece. for the 3/8 seam running midway along the We are committed to producing chassis rails. We use 1/8 gauge steel. The Healeys that are as original and safe as tube is pound for pound stronger than the possible. We love Healeys. We are not, original and much stronger than a frame however, willing to sacrifice your safety, that has seen the elements of 40 years or investment and enjoyment, by doing a more. (See also article- Sure Foundation) less than satisfactory job. It is also dead straight and reproduces If you are still contemplating repairing Donald Healey’s original geometry. The your chassis, check the laws in your area. price is significantly less that the price In Ontario, a car must be safe to be on of any serious restoration and infinitely the road. When ownership is transferred