Bought myself a new MIG welder a couple of weeks ago, shame really as I had one which was quite suitable about 10 years ago and sold it thinking i would never need one again, decided I'm going to keep this one !!! I have also been doing a lot of reading up on the world of Marcos and learning lots which is giving me the confidence to move the project forward.
I'm now having a week off work which is actually last years annual leave carried over, I was planning going on a little cycling trip for a couple of days but the wet weather has decided otherwise so in between family outings I have been spending a few hours away in the garage, fortunately the neighbours both side's have gone away as the angle grinder sure is noisy.
Now't to do with Marcos Cars but just as loud and still on a high from Tuesday after seeing the excellent "Quireboys" at JB's in Dudley, who you ask ? must get a CD player for the garage.
I have finally started on one side of the chassis and having cut out the worst of the badly rusted sections I have cut new rails to fit and after a little practice with my new welder have tacked them into place ready to weld them fully over the next few days, the photograph shows only a few of the rails replaced as there is more cutting out to do, it sure is a nice sight to see fresh metal in place of the rust.
When the chassis is finished (eventually) it will either be galvanised or dipped in a tank and through a multi-stage immersion so it is important that there are no blocked off sections of tubing that can't be accessed by the sticky stuff, I have therefore made a point of drilling a access hole in any of the new "T" joints so that any fluid to keep the rust away can flow through all the inner sections of the chassis. It seems that in line with other Marcos cars the chassis were not very well protected (if at all !) other than a coat of blue paint as they left the factory and it is always the outer rails that rust which is where all the muck is thrown up from the front wheels, the centre and upper parts of the chassis are all sound.
Out of curiosity I did speak to Marcos Heritage Spares who do a lot of repair work on these cars and after they first tried to sell me a new chassis at £4500 they then quoted me approx £1200 to replace just the side rails, it will cost me probably no more than £100 in fresh steel. When the sides are finished I intend to then look at the rear section as i feel that some cross-bracing could eliminate any rear steer when cornering under pressure, I need to do some more reading up first to get some ideas for this.
I am now looking forward to the annual Marcos Rally which this year is over the weekend of the 7th June and it could not be more local for me, on the Saturday they have hired the Curdborough Sprint Circuit near Lichfield so are looking forward to seeing (and hearing) a few cars in action and on the Sunday they will be meeting at RAF Cosford, well worth a visit for just the museum alone.
Roll on the 7th, and a Hi to Wolfgang, http://www.marcos-cc.de/index.htm who has lots of useful info and because he has given me a plug on his website,
Martyn
26/05/2008.
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