Classic R #27 Build - Frame

Progress has been slow as we bought a house, another old stone pile here in Bucks County, and have been slowly moving out of the old place and into the new. That's meant setting up a new workshop here in the garage and preparing to bring the car over.

However - finally - I was able to get the frame loaded up and sent to the powder coater over in Warminster, PA. The name of the company is Advanced Coating Processors. I'm going down tomorrow to pick it up. Can't wait so here are some pictures of the dismantled frame and the loading process.


With the car completely dismantled, here's the frame, naked as the day it arrived but with a lot more holes in it. Art came over a couple of Saturdays ago and helped me dismantle and do some minor repair work. From start to finish the dismantling process took about 12 hours including removing the engine and transmission and moving it the 4.5 miles to the new house.


Eagle eyed fans of the Stalker will notice immediately that I welded in extra rails for the seats. I did this a while back during seat installation. However with the car right-side up and the floors installed I couldn't complete the underside welds. With the car stripped down to the frame I took the opportunity to finish up the seat rail installation, welding the underside and flattening the welds with the grinder to allow the floor pans to fit flush, as before. I also went over the frame deburring the holes, cleaning up welds and ensuring it was generally fit for powder coating.


The frame sees the light of day for the first time since December 2015. I was working on my own the day I loaded it up so I used the Mule to transport it from my basement to the driveway.


Fits perfectly in the bed of a rented 8' pickup truck with the tailgate down. Two ratchet straps hold it in place.


And half an hour later last Friday here we are at Advanced Coating Processors. Wednesday's the big day. I've been promised pictures of the work in progress so will post more if that comes to fruition.

-Dave

Went over to Advanced Coating Processors in Warminster today to pick up the frame.


Here it is still in the oven after baking.


Being wheeled out by ACP's proprietor. They did a beautiful job, blasting, zinc priming and then powder coating the whole thing. All the holes were plugged prior to powdercoating. The area I'd masked off for the ground connection was correctly left bare. All in all I'm very happy and their prices are very reasonable.


Here we are at home again with the frame back on the build table. Now I can start final assembly. I did drop off the firewall and the floors to be powdercoated as well.


Detail of the rollover bar and harness mounting panel. I'm really happy with how this turned out. I'd considered doing a semi gloss or flat black to avoid having finger marks constantly show up on the frame but so far that hasn't been a problem for me.

-Dave

The floor panels and the firewall came back today from powdercoating and they look spectacular.



Ready to install. I'll turn the frame over tomorrow and hopefully get these installed. I have all the hardware on hand including nylon washers to prevent the screws from marring the powdercoat surface.