Picked up this 17 inch on Gumtree this week. Planning to rebuild, but looks to be a tricky one due to rail fracture that has been welded up by the previous owner.
The motor stamp suggests it was built on 10th August, 1981. The green hammertone is a new type of colour - I am thinking it must have been re-sprayed at some point as it does not look like the Scott Bonnar colours that I am used to seeing?
I used a sanding attachment on the grinder to get some close up pictures of the rails. What is the best way to fix these up?
Hope you didn't pay too much more than $35 for it as it's considered an unserviceable chassis at this point.
This is probably one of the worst examples we've seen, in saying that I do have one that's even worse sitting in my boneyard.
The only thing that can be done with this is either fabricate up new sections, but I feel that the gusset repair method will save this one. After that's been done then there will be quite a lot of grooving out and slow mig welding to be done to all the external fractures seen to stabilize it properly.
Attention To All Members !
If I may say something in relation to your photos which won't show up on the thread until I do something with them, can all members please reduce the file size of their images to around 500Kb before loading them to the site, otherwise they won't show up as images, rather just as file names.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
Thanks for the reply. You should've seen how the motor was sitting on top of one of the welds! They hadn't tried to grind it down at all. Very uneven. Would it be worth running an extra bit of metal on the underside of the front of the rail as well?
I've been wondering why the photos wouldn't show up - struggling to get my head around how to upload them in the new-look editor. I already reduce them by just taking a screen shot of the photo, but obviously, I need to compress them even more. Will see how I go next time I need to upload photos! Am I right in saying I just click the 'attach file' option or should I be using a different method to include my photos?
You use the "Attachment Manager" which is only available if you click on the "use Full editor" tab.
I'm slightly bemused about your question regarding the placement of the piece of metal when I recommended the "Gusset Repair Method" which is along the same lines.
Not sure how I missed his reply, but you're right - I had a blonde moment! I saw an old 17" Craftsman about a fortnight ago and picked it up for $20. The chassis was in terrible shape, but I picked up a fairly decent reel (in my opinion) out of it and figured I could use it for parts.
I think I'll be using the reel (black) out of the Craftsman instead of the original (red). The picture doesn't show that much but there is definitely far more material on it.
I also noticed that one of the key holes in the clutch shaft was damaged so I'll be swapping that out too. Hoping to get parts out for sandblasting in the next fortnight or so.
I have also found a gentleman in Brisbane who fabricates stands specifically to work on Scott Bonnar's, so I'm going to get one of those to save my back and perhaps even save some room in the garage!
