Thread: Cleaning inside the chassis

I've just finished steam cleaning the chassis prior to repairs and sandblasting. As always I've also steam cleaned inside the chassis rails using a pipe cleaning attachment. Most of the chassis contained more or less what I'd expect, but the crossmember that passes under the bellhousing (not the one on which the gearbox mounts, the next one forward) was totally filled with dirt. When I say "filled", I mean filled - I had to start carving in through the drain holes with a screwdriver. At one point I had almost decided that the crossmember was actually three pieces with no internal passage!

After a couple of hours working on that single crossmember I have got it clean, but there are still a few large lumps of crud that are too big to get out and will take forever to dissolve (they simply bounce around and avoid the water blaster!). I'l have to use a holesaw to remove a piece of steel, then weld it back later......

Is this crossmember always full of dirt? I notice that it's not fully welded to the chassis rails on the top side, so will allow dirt to run in from above. I think I'll weld up the gaps before I repaint, just leaving the drains on the underside........

Yeah, when I removed mine a few months ago, it was absolutely FULL of dirt. Rusted badly, too. Luckily a mate has made me a nice new one.