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Hi all, the restoration of my Mk1 is progressing well. I need to replace my front crossmember and I’m having difficulty removing the centre section. I’ve unpicked all the obvious spot welds to no avail. What have other people done to remove theirs?
I’ve only got the centre section left to remove. It’s still attached at the end of the chassis rails and the sides of the closing panel as I can’t get a dril or grinder in there. I’ve also just removed the guts of it to get better look (and discover some butchered “repairs” to the ends of the chassis rails).
I can see where you have the issues, but it is quite difficult to explain, have a look at these pics first which show what I started with and what I did, you may be able to get a better insight from them. BD Classics
You need to cut around the chassis legs first, and remove the bits left on them later as you will never get the whole center section off in one piece. You will have to cut off the rad brackets to get the thing back together, there is a separate closing panel at the back of the crossmember which you will have to replace too. There is usually a continuous weld at the top of the chassis legs on both sides, you do need to cut everything you can away and then remove the small bits.
Just an update, I managed to get it all out, I removed the cowls either side of the radiator which made things a lot easier. Now onto repairing ends of the chassis legs and welding the new one in!
Just an update! I welded in the new crossmember. I’ve also applied rust converter to a lot of the surface rust on the sides of the engine bay. Hopefully it works as well as people say it does!
Last edited by AussieMark1; Dec 5, 2018 at 10:22 PM.
Mk1 crossmember removal.
