Healey Journal

A Buyer’s Guide: Criteria for Buying a Rustbucket: Potential Chassis  Faults

2)  The Chassis will also almost certainly need attention. A replacement chassis will cost on the order of ~£3,500 with a complete inner body more than doubling that cost.

a)  Jacks were almost inevitably used on the frame. In most cases the weight of the Healey dented the frame at the jacking point and sometimes the welds on the frame rails split open. This was the case with mine. This may allow corrosion on the inside of the chassis. Note too that the front of the chassis rail has rusted away.

b) The “outriggers” used to support the floors and door sills are almost inevitably rusted and careful inspection of these is essential. This was the case with mine. If necessary they may be replaced, but so doing requires healthy frame rails for attachment. Note in the photo shown at the left that the chassis rail is itself badly rotten- these cannot be assumed to be healthy when everything else around them is not.

c) The sills are also almost inevitably rusted. This was the case with mine. They too required replacement- repair would have been a false economy- a  previous owner had welded 1/2" angle iron to the floor and sill from the front to the rear to support both. The floors are obviously susceptible to rust from both below and above (sitting water or rain saturated carpeting). In the car I found that the floors were badly rusted at their joints with the sills- so much so that a previous owner had reinforced that area by welding 1/2" angle iron the length of the floors and sills.

The sills are very susceptible to rust at the rear, where they joint the inner wheel wells- at that point the gap between the wheel wells and the rear wing allow for dirt and water to become trapped.  This creates a disaster area that will affect the inner and outer sills, the wing's dogleg, the inner wheel well and the rear floor. I dug half a shovel full of sand from that area, and all the surrounding metal suffered corrosion. These panels are readily available and will be replaced.

The car will have entirely new inner, intermediate and outer sills, and new main, rear and front floors. The existing rear transmission tunnel is reusable as are the panels alongside the fiberglass transmission tunnel. The rear seat panel and the front and rear bulkheads that support it are also reusable.

d) The chassis should be checked for straightness and any damage. If possible you should try to observe the car being driven to see how it tracks and rides. The chassis seemed straight and square, it was just too bad that it was crumbling from all the rust in it.

f) One final point that may be almost impossible to check is to see whether all the captive nuts are healthy. The most important are those for the shock absorbers but they're also used for the anti-roll bar and buffers. The rear shock mounting holes might also be worn larger, if those bolts had been allowed to loosen up.

All in all, the chassis on mine was a disaster area. It had appeared to have been in better condition when bought. Although I was prepared to do the welding to patch it all together an opportunity arose to buy a replacement chassis cheap (well, as far as those things go, it was), and I did. The chassis is literally the foundation for everything else on the car, so having a new one, straight and strong, was a worthwhile investment. I told my wife that, so it must be true.

The chassis rails were badly rusted on their bottoms, with a large section missing from one, and perforations through both at several points. Three of the four outriggers had largely disintegrated and the fourth was unuseable. The photos show the floors and sills as missing, They were not, but their condition was so bad that they might as well have been.  The sills were rusted terribly, and the right one had been "reinforced" with angle iron to keep it all together. The rear bulkheads were acceptable as was the top and central sections of the front scuttle though the front floors and side panels were badly rusted at their bottoms. The rear transmission tunnel was good, as were the oddly shaped pieces alongside the main, fiberglass transmission tunnel.

The only sensible assessment was that the chassis would require extensive effort at cutting out old rotten bits, welding in new and that the finished product was unlikely to ever be entirely trustworthy.

Thus a new, healthy  chassis was added to my shopping list... and the project completion date pushed back another year, or so.....