1990 Dutton Legerra restoration

After having another look today and bearing in mind what you have just said ...  looks like it will be going in for seats and guides then. I don't see the point in not doing it while it's apart.
Ho Hum...

Got a slightly broken Sierra to fix first (snapped drivers side strut and burst damper insert) and the price of escort parts is mental...

Sierra fixed but at a cost. Coilover struts on 170lb springs all very shiny and worked out cheaper than buying all the replacement standard parts. Made it to Stoneleigh and back on Sunday so can't be that bad.
Anyway, bit more done to the Legerra now. These flex like nobodies business when you get in and out, causes the doors to jam on the shuts and ruins the fibreglass in the door aperture. The accepted cure is to brace the chassis underneath. As I got some space back I decided to drag the chassis out and using the trusty engine hoist I lifted the chassis on one side and then carefully lowered it back down. This means the bits that need therapy are higher up so much easier to get to. Gravity also comes in useful as the chassis is supported at either end with axle stands and and natural bend is reversed.


IMAG0526 by Adrian Southgate, on Flickr

I started to run a flap wheel over the lower edge of the rail but it's quite pitted so I'll use a wire brush in the angry grinder and then weld through primer once it's tidy.
Sitting on top of the chassis you can see the 20mm x 40mm box thats going to be added. It will need a wedge taking out about halfway to allow it to follow the existing chassis then the whole lot is going to be seam welded together.
Looking at the other parts underneath I can see I am going to have to order some more wire brushes.


Round two this evening and realised the 'tough paint' was actually an extra fine grit flap wheel   

That changed for something with a bit more attitude it took less than ten minutes to remove all the paint and pitting from the area to be welded. Time to get creative. I trimmed a little V out of the end of the box section and 'adjusted it into a curved end which will hopefully match up with the existing chassis and round the new metal off nicely. Bit of a gap to fill but that'll fill with weld.


IMAG0533 by Adrian Southgate, on Flickr

Did something similar to the front.


IMAG0535 by Adrian Southgate, on Flickr

Both sides are cut and laid in place but no welding done as I'm having a pro do that. They will need the V shape I cut out in the middle welding up at the right angle before they are welded to the chassis.


IMAG0536 by Adrian Southgate, on Flickr

The rails fit nicely as they are so hopefully it will be just clamp up and mig on, might have to clean a bit more metal back in places. Plan is for me to sit on the centre of the chassis while they are welded on which will hopefully produce a slight bow in the side rails in the opposite direction to that produced when the car is the right way up and my lardy backside sits in it. 

Last one for the night is both side rails sitting in place on the bottom of the main chassis rails.


IMAG0532 by Adrian Southgate, on Flickr

Ho Hum, another busy couple of weeks doing apparently nothing...
Photo's though, oh yes, I know you all like photo's...
Bit of welding done... Now I'm not exactly a 'tidy' welder, in fact most of the work i've seen done on here puts me well in the 'rank amateur' class. I'm not trying to show off my welding skills. The original box section has a very rounded edge making the V between the two bits of metal quite deep (5-6 mm) Most of this gap is now full of weld and a lot has been ground back flush rather than leave messy bumps in the metal.
I've probably committed overkill on this but I really want it to stay put and not use 'filler'. I'd appreciate any constructive criticism or suggestions on how I could improve or if i've done something horribly wrong.

All these bits were tacked, then stitched a bit at a time allowing time to cool between welds, took bloody ages.

Anyroad, here's the evidence.


N/S chassis rail, large plate fitted to support the original welded joint.


N/S chassis rail, support box, to stop the main rail from flexing


Full length of main rail seam welded, honestly thought i'd never finish this.


And the front of the rail, this bit is diagonally braced above the rail and may yet be plated as it exposes the side of the engine and starter motor (on the pinto) to spray.
Yes, thats a drum... on the front, There is a set of discs and calipers waiting to be fitted.


O/S inner edge of the large plate, more 'practice welding' where its not going to be visible. Once the chassis has been blasted i'll be able to touch this up if required (or smooth it off)


O/S outer face of the same plate, no grinding back yet, just wazzed over with the angry grinder and the wire wheel.


O/S outer face of the main rail, again seam welded down the entire length.

It may not be tidy but it's solid. I put axle stands under the front and rear extremities of the chassis and stood on the gearbox mounts. Normally this would cause a measurable deflection in the chassis, thats now gone. Hopefully this will prevent the door shuts fouling when closing as well as stiffening the ride up.

I have the stubs, hubs and discs from a mk2 already to go on (they came off my green one when I upgraded to vented)
They are the later ones but have integral steering arms so take metric track rod ends however they can't cope with vented discs as the steering arm is a knats to close to allow free movement without the risk of the boot on the track rod end touching the disc.

The green one looks like this under the front...



You can see how close the rubber boot is to the disc, these have been changed to a rose joint setup which is a better fit.
The old stubs have been blasted, the hubs will be too (once I've sealed the ends) new wheel bearings and new discs to fit as well as refurb calipers. The escort mk2 stainless flexi's are too long for the Legerra and join to the car in a stupidly inaccessible location so I'm going to move that mount as well, from under the chassis in the corner...



to the inside of the chassis leg where you can get at both parts with no problem. 
That yellow is Halfords own caliper paint which is a pain in the backside to apply as it's low on pigment content so requires about five or six heavy coats with a brush however it is dot 4 proof as I had a split union which left fluid down the caliper... just wiped it off no harm done to finish at all.

your chassis strengthening looks like a sound investment towards handling. looks like an old bedframe before, must be quite twisty ?

The green one has been in constant use since 2007, its got no extra bracing. If you go over a speed ramp with the o/s front wheel the other one normally loses grip/contact with the floor... ARB too stiff? lol
The main issue is the frame distorting when you add 75 kg of raw meat right in the middle. Its enough to stop the doors functioning properly as they don't foul when i'm not in it.   

Jury is out on the mods until I try it with the body back on and bolted down but it has been done before by others and has worked.

Did a bit more yesterday but no pictures ..

To allow the chassis to be blasted I wanted to get all the suspension removed, this is the point where you REALLY hope the bloke that built it used grease in the bush tubes to keep the water out, well he didn't. I went round and soaked everything in WD40, anything that would come undone got removed with the wheel gun so that bit was over and done with, going well I thought... The ones that won't come out are going to get grief...

After lots of cursing and attacking things with the angry grinder I managed to get the front off. TCA's no problem, shock tops no problem ... Dutton wishbones - stuck fast and the worst possible places to get at with a slitting disc. Managed to get them out eventually but had to bend the brackets, good job Dutton never welded them all the way round !



Dumped all that off to one side and moved everything down to the back end. I'm expecting this to be hassle as its made up of all the same bushes as the front wishbones and they were rusted in. True to form these were too. Shocks came off easy, sods law the lower trailing arm to chassis bolts were solid and they are a pig to get to. Getting this done with the body on would be pretty much an impossibility without cutting the brackets.

Some time later...

Its off, despite every bush on the back end fighting me its now sitting on the floor awaiting disassembly. Whats worse is knowing I have chosen to do it all again, and again....

Anyway, deconstruction of the back axle now...

I took it off with all the bars still attached as the access to the bolt heads is dire. To make it easier I thought i'd take all the brackets off the axle, just 8 bolts under the spring mounting plates, how hard could that be...?

In true Dutton style the outboard nuts are 3/4 ... the inboard ones are 11/16ths... REALLY...!!

so, air wrench in hand I set about trying to undo the 3/4 ones... wd40, blowlamp at the ready... forget it. After about ten minutes on one bolt, flicking the lever on the gun from forward to reverse and back it finally began to twitch... another ten minutes and it was still just twitching about half a rotation. By this time I gone for the ear defenders... getting a wheel nut off is one thing, getting these undone was something else.

Two hours later I got the last one off. half past nine... that's 11 hours just to clear every last nut and bolt off the chassis. More to do tomorrow but at least now I'm looking at cleaning and building rather than trying to undo someone elses nuts...

Well whaddya know... The second set of papers I filled in got sent in a pre paid envelope as supplied by the DVLA. I left it a week before I called to allow mr postie time to do his thing and sure enough he did, well he would have if they hadn't gone missing as well.

Had a few calls and some emails back and forth with the DVLA and hopefully it's now in process. Two sets of documents I posted in and they don't seem to be able to locate any of them.  Had to repeat the process by email.


Anyway - back on the spanners...

Axle is now stripped down, cleaned out and I'm happy with the casing. I've got some paint so that'll keep me busy for a few evenings. Made a stand from a couple of bits of old timber and the two ARB brackets I removed from the axle as they were unused and just 'dead weight'. It all came apart with no real drama apart from freeing the brake drums. Now it's just an empty shell awaiting it's fate.



I'm now in a bit of a dilemma as I'm not sure which diff ratio to use. 
I have currently got 2 x 3.89:1, a 3.88:1 and a 3.54:1.



As its only using a 1600 crossflow and a type 3 box of uncertain ratio's I'm not sure which one will provide the best result for 'general motoring'. I am tempted to use the 3.54:1 just to keep the revs down on the motorway as I expect quite a bit of it's life will be spent there. The 3.88:1 is an odd one though as it has a 9 tooth pinion and a 35 tooth CROWN wheel according to the stamping on the actual CROWN wheel. The 3.89:1 has 10 and 39 stamped in.

I knew the 3.89:1's were the most common and the 3.54:1's were rare but hadn't actually come across a 3.88:1 before.

Does make me wonder what I will find in the other axles when I eventually get around to sorting them out.

Ahhhhhhh.... the joys of Dutton chassis construction, or lack of. Brought back some 'interesting' memories!

I'll live with that. I did a lot of stuff on 'gearcalc' which gives me loads of theoretical data but as we all know theory doesn't allow for a lack of aerodynamics   I think you're right, the 3.54:1 will give me a good starting place.

At some point I will work out the square area of 'intake' surface and make sure I have enough 'outlet' although most of the air that goes in the front escapes through the awful panel gaps...I'd like to make sure it escapes in the right direction not under the body.

As this was chassis number six thousand and something you would have thought they would have got it right.... 



This maybe a solution however it would require quite a large amount of metal to be added at the front for the tunnel brace to be fixed to. All the early B types etc had a tunnel frame as the tubs were ally skins riveted on and needed a frame. The semi rigid fibreglass tub removed the requirement for the steel frame so there is no steel between the chassis rails from the front of the seat base forward until you reach the front crossmember under the front pulley...   
As this one is going to be as original as possible i'm not going to chop the glass floor of the tub. 
I do have another (currently designated project Y) which isn't registered. This means it will need an IVA. As the crossflow/pinto era of engines is never going to pass todays emissions tests I have decided on a Zetec mid engine configuration retaining all the donor vehicle parts, much like the more modern kits do today. This will need a tunnel brace and quite a lot more adding, possibly even a full cage. But that as they say is another story...