Thread: Galvanise 130 chassis

Originally Posted by johntins

Weren't the Perentie chassis gal?

Yes all galled but they should have done the firewall and the door frames as well. Would have made it a rust free vehicle then!

Gal will add quite a bit of weight, but so will a 4bd1.
Funny though, I was thinking about buying an ex army td5, for its gal chassis amongst other things. Then buying a cheap 130 and switching the cabin.
You know what happened to thought though........

Seems to me that the first thing that needs galvanising on a Defender is wheel rims. I now have 16 Wolf rims of which 12 so far have been galvanised by Furphys at Shepparton. Biggest job was alternating with paint stripper and elbow grease to get paint off. Cleaning baths are used before galvanising to take a bit of paint and rust off but best get rid of at least most of it first. After galvanising, normally have do a bit of smoothing out of some rough spots.

Then while at it galvanising rims, thought matching galvanised wheel nuts would be appropriate. Stop them getting rusty and looking untidy. First, I filled up all the insides of them with silastic to protect the threads. Let it cure for several days, then poked holes through the middle and threaded them onto a piece of wire so they could be hung in the hot galvanising pickle. Silastic will withstand this. Then to get it out afterwards, soak them in petrol - which destroys silastic, scrape / push /poke it out and repeat until clean. Note these galvanised nuts are a slightly tighter fit inside 1 1/16 inch or 27mm sockets than in their original state. I have kept 3/4 inch drive ones and breaker bars in vehicle to wheel spanners ever since I found that original Land Rover wheel brace would just bend if nuts were very tight. Including after being tightened with a rattle gun at tyre place.

I think that the silastic method of galvanising wheel nuts suggested by one of the blokes in the receival and despatch at Furphys was a bit of an experiment for him that worked. They sometimes advise the customer on things to do to facilitate the galvanising process. eg hollow items need adequate holes drilled in them to allow pickle to first run in then drain out. Then they can advise where warping may occur - especially of this steel and sometimes ways of reducing or stopping it. Including welding on supporting frame to be cut off afterwards. Note this also gets galvanised and charged for, as main basis of assessing cost is on weight of steel galvanised. I gather where warpage may be a significant problem galvanisers may warm beforehand of the likelihood and they do not accept responsibility for it. They are almost certainly a few job requests that they refuse because of this. I did ask about galvanising a Land Rover chassis at Furphys - mainly as a matter of interest. Bloke I asked seemed to think they would be reluctant to touch it.

A friend's Dad in the UK gal'ed a 90 chasis. He reckoned it was essential. He stripped the car down and rebuilt it for a trip around Iceland last year. The project was a couple of years in the making.

Lots of answers to galvanising questions here, FAQs

After getting down to the nitty gritty details with a knowledgeable guy at the galv company, I won’t be able to galv my chassis.

The acids they use are not strong enough to strip the coating inside the chassis. Therefore whilst a galv chassis would look good, and have a good amount of protection, there will still be a significant portion inside the frame that can't be sandblasted that will receive a very patchy zinc coating.

I could open up the frame, blast it all, then weld it up and continue on, but that is a herculean effort......it would need some serious thinking, planning and work. I'd rather just buy a aftermarket galv chassis ex-UK already done.

So I will still remove the cab, strip it bare, weld up the tray cracked mounts and give the chassis a mid-life reco.....I'll sandblast the exterior and water jet the interior. I'll seal the exterior with some kind of durable suitable chassis coating that can handle years of stone chips, unsure of the best product right now. For the interior I'll look into getting a premium oil based sealer out of the UK.

Cheers,

Jason

Originally Posted by Colmoore

Gal will add quite a bit of weight, but so will a 4bd1.
Funny though, I was thinking about buying an ex army td5, for its gal chassis amongst other things. Then buying a cheap 130 and switching the cabin.
You know what happened to thought though........

Did the TD5s also have a gal chassis?