Frame Restoration (January 2001)
OK. It's January. It's COLD. The Barage is not heated. And I have to clean the front half of this frame to see ehat I have to work with.
Driver's side. No real surprizes here. Some chipped epoxy and surface rust. The black area on the front parts of the frame is where some previous repairs were made.
This is from the front center looking back. (As much as I hate the epoxy, it does sorta look nice when you clean off a grimy greasy mess to reveal an area of shiny grey epoxy.
Same as driver's side. The only area requiring attention on the front half of the frame is under the center crossmember where I found some rust. I'll cut the area out and weld in new metal.
I also thoroughly cleaned the front "tub". I'll repair any pits or defects in the fiberglass prior to priming and painting (like the engine bay).
The only area of rust on the frame that concerned me was here on the front cross member between the front wheels. There was a rust hole completely throught this lower plate.
Before I could replace the bad metal with new metal, I have to cut out the bad section. I located and drilled out the spot welds, then used sheet metal nibblers to cut out the plate.
This is the piece of metal I removed. I'll clean up the surrounding area and treat the inside of the frame before I weld in the new piece. I was curious why this spot rusted so bad and upon closer inspection found that this inner area of the frame was never completely coated with epoxy.
