Post Donington Assesment

Dad wasn't too pleased that i had destroyed the new light weight front end on only its second outing, and my suggestion to bin it and build a replacement wasn't met with much enthusiasm.

We may have the a mould, but the laying up is the easy and quick part, dad has put many hours into the finishing, preping, spraying and fitting of the numerous incarnations of the front end and bonnet. So the best option we came up with was to cut the damaged section off completely and put it back into the mould, and lay up the missing section.

The front undertray had also come delaminated, so we cut of the delaminated part and added a fresh layer

Once it had all gone off, the part was popped out the mould. It had come out brilliantly, just requiring a small amount of filler and a bit of rubbing down (dad likes this ;-) )

Back in my garage i stripped off the front end to assess the mechanical damage, praying there was no more damage that what we had seen from out initial inspection at Donington. I was really worried about what had happened to the scuttle area as the steering column had moved about an inch closer to the dash board and we hadn't removed the centre tub. Luckiy it turned out to be just the column slipping through the mounting clamp, so no damage in this area

 So after pulling it all apart the following the list of damage is as follows:-

• Bent lower Wishbone
• Bent rear lower wishbone pickup, chassis is fine, just the U bracket is bent
• Small dink in joining chassis member between upper and lower main chassis rails
• Bent steering rack mount
• Twisted oil cooler
• Mangled aluminium radiator ducting/floor

 

So although there is a bt of work to be done it isnt too bad at all. The damage has all occurred on the same corner of the chassis i rebuilt a couple of seasons ago (Pre 2010 prep), i used rather beefy tube to do this, added loads of gussets and my welding was obviously strong as rather than the entire corner being ripped out like a normal fury, it is all fine apart from the pick up bracket bending, infact it has completely bent, but the welding and tube is untouched. I have attempted to straighten the bracket, but am weighing up the option to cut it off and reweld a new one on. 

The steering rack bracket is bent slightly, but enough to move the rack to the jaunty angle and pull the rack forward, i haven't attempted to straighten it yet, but am thinking a small slice in the tube, bend it, then reweld it up.