Antony Pattison has very kindly sent us this article of his recent pre-cat restoration. Its a great article as I am sure you will agree and its great to see an owner taking this on and Documenting it to share with us. Thanks Ant. Chassis Assessment Body removal Chassis repair Body work Body re-fit. Pistonheads Wiki article Thanks

Body Off

1. Chassis Assessment.

Back in June 07 I started to take more interest in the condition of the outriggers on my ’92 precat Griffith.
Having done remedial work on both the front end and rear end of the chassis including the suspension a couple of winters earlier my attention turned to making sure the outriggers weren’t about to crumble away!

Sill Area

Diff Area

Typically this was the view from below the sill area, not looking too good, and of course this is the bit that could seen. And also seen above is the condition of the diff area.

The main back bone of the chassis looked pretty good as is usually the case with these cars. A trip to Sportmotive and a hoist up in the air on the ramp confirmed what was already a forgone conclusion.

“Well , it’ll just have to come off then” . Secretly this was good news, a big project to get my teeth into and learn more about the Griff.

The plan was to get the car stripped toward the beginning of November and work on the car over winter.

2.Body Removal

To ensure there were no nasty surprises or anything got forgotten I listed all the jobs I could think off . Everything that needed undoing, removing or slackening to allow the body to lift cleanly away.

This list would help me to work methodically and hopefully ensure I didn’t forget anything! It doesn’t list everything associated with each job, just the task itself. Obviously draining the tank before removing it is a good idea!

So with the car in Sportmotives unit, and the ramp free I began to swing some spanners for real.
Luckily, most of the work went smoothly, and yes there were lessons learnt. Like the front ARB wont move out of the way to allow the front chassis bolts out, until the radiator is out of the way. I had hoped to leave the radiator in the body.

Behind the tank are four fasteners, three came out with no problem.
The N/S upper (a domed head capscrew) decided to stay where TVR put it, and it also decided that it didn’t need to keep a hexagon hole in its head either. A nut was welded onto the cap screw and with the heat from the mig, it relented its position.

One of the front chassis bolts also put up a fight, and then sheared straight off, leaving part of it in the chassis, but that could wait for later. Even the seat belt pins all came out cleanly, after removing the seats. Any wiring that I wasn’t 100% sure of was labelled for future re-connection, this included the transmission tunnel area, and of course the engine bay wiring. After just 2 days of work the “done” boxes on the list were all ticked and the time came for the body to leave the chassis after 16 years.

Seat Fixings

With just one extra pair of eyes for assistance and the pads of the two poster ramp under the wheel arches (body was going to be painted anyway) the button on the ramp was pressed.
The body actually needs to come off with the front higher than the rear, the diff area kind of slots up into the rear area, so we jacked the rear end up a little to get the chassis at the correct angle.

Rolling Chassis

All was going well, the front had separated nicely, and we checked that all the engine bay wires were not being trapped. The gear lever and handbrake didn’t cause any problems as the rubber gaiters had been removed previously. Another lift of a couple of inches and the rear end was ready to be exposed, but we noticed that the rear suspension was lifting slightly so we stopped again and used a small pry bar to aid the separation. With one more press of the button the body lifted clean away from what was now just a Rolling chassis.

The plan was to now take the chassis home for stripping and repair. The engine and box were removed and stored away for the winter.
 

3.Chassis repair

Transmission Tunnel

The rolling chassis arriving home ready for some work. Again to aid the rebuild I took photos of the fuel pipe and brake pipe positions.And then proceeded to remove everything possible from the main chassis! The diff was stripped out and taken to John Reid in Blackpool for a rebuild, as it had had a whine since the car was bought. The fuel and brake pipes were stripped off without disturbing their shape too much, this would help me to make new pipes up later.

Home Sweet Home

Diff Area

Bare Bones

When the chassis was stripped I started to check the outrigger tubes to work out the extent of the rust. They didn’t look too bad at first….	Outriggers
But this photo, taken a while later (after I had decided to just replace all the tubes), shows how deceiving looks can be. This is the N/S front corner after I hammered it.	NS front Corner
This photo shows how good the tubes were inside, it was quite surprising that although they were pretty rusty outside the inside was barely marked.	Good Internals

The main chassis section was perfect apart from flakey powder coating.

New out riggers were formed and welded into place, the snapped pin was removed from the front body mount under the radiator, and the chassis was sent for blasting. All the bolt holes in the chassis had bolts fitted to stop shot getting inside the frame. The chassis was also primed with a High build, High zinc, High content primer.

Primed and Ready

Primed Front

Primed Central

The chassis was now ready for paint and was treated to stone chip on the riggers and two coats of two pack in silver.

The suspension arms were treated to the same process and assembly back to a rolling chassis began.

Outriggers top	Outriggers Underneath
On Wheels	Rolling Again

Finished rolling chassis, being taken back to have engine and box fitted.

En Route

4.Bodywork

Nose Preparation	The front end had always been heavily chipped since I bought the car, but having come from TR6 ownership, I adopted the mindset of “at least it isn’t rusting!”. It turned out that the front end had been painted at least once, no surprise there, I flatted through two coats of paint and lacquer to get back to gelcoat, but it was nice not to see any sign of repair on the front ….
Primered	The paint at the front was completely flatted back to remove all the chips. The entire spider cracks at the rear sides, the small cracks above the rear lights and any other minor damaged bits were all repaired. The spider cracks were cut into and gel coat applied, then flatted back.
Side view	The body then received a coat of primer, which was flatted back, then another coat of primer, which I duly flatted back again. At this stage I was seriously concerned for my finger print identity, but was assured it would be worth it!

And painted

Painted Front

Front wing

Painted Rear

Writing this now, the body repair section seems really short, but the amount of hours that I put into the prep of the body seemed endless.
The Griff body isn’t a huge body, but the curves and shapes take some serious consideration to avoid any faults being flatted into it.

To see it painted was a huge relief and a major step forward in the project. The colour is Cooper Green, when the paint was being ordered there was another Cooper Green griff in the workshop, but the paint code on this one differed to mine. The later cars paint code was used and the colour is actually nicer than before, although in theory it should be the same.

The chassis had now been sitting and waiting with the engine and box back in place for some time. Soon the time would come for two to become one again.

5.Body re-fit.

When it came time to re-fit the body , the method of the two post ramp pads under the wheel arches was out of the question. So I used two lengths of box section steel under neath the front and rear of the shell to lift it up from the trolley.Using this method of lifting, it took just 2 hours to place the body back to the rolling chassis.	A Superb Finish
Using my job checklist, I then began re-fixing, re-connecting and re-commissioning everything that could be. This actually takes more time than taking the car apart, re-bleeding the brakes, connecting the fuel system, re-connecting the engine wiring and so on. After 3 days work the car was ready to start. The ignition was switched on and off a couple of time to prime the fuel system.	Pre Cat Nose Cone
The engine had stood for 6 months so, the main ignition lead was disconnected to enable the engine to be turned over to get the oil pressure up first. With that achieved the ignition was re-connected and I went for the first fire since Oct 07. It fired first time, I was amazed and over the moon to hear those gorgeous pre cat sounds again.	Back Together

Running again

The following weeks consisted of  fitting the doors, bonnet and boot lid, the hood and all the little bits that make it a functioning car again. The suspension was checked for alignment , and finally an MOT test undertaken, which it passed first time.

2 Smoking Barrels

Finished from Below

6. Pistonheads Wiki article.

Following the completion of the rebuild I put together a “wiki” article on Pistonheads.com, the aim of this was to provide an initial guide to any prospective “body off” owners. This was also added to by Rob Brooklands ,who at a similar time was completing a “body lift” on his Griffith.
Griffith body off hints and tips LINK

7.Thanks

Thanks to Ian of Sportmotive, a sponsor of The Griffith Pages Sponsor for all the help and encouragement.
Thanks to my partner Angela for being a Griff widow, never moaning and saying “wow” every time I reached a milestone in the rebuild.

Antony Pattison