New member - complete with a Westfield!

[ralphy]

Hello all, I do hope this is the right sub-forum to introduce myself.

 

So, looong story short: I’ve acquired a Westfield and it’s in need of a bit of TLC…  Here’s what I know about it: built in 1989 (I think) and it’s a SEi which had a RS turbo engine in it.  I say ‘had’ as it isn’t actually in the car – in fact nothing much is:

 

 

 

The car belonged to a local chap who sadly passed away recently and some years ago he stripped the car down for reasons unknown.  A mutual friend was asked to see if he could find someone who would take on the car with a view to restoring it and he nominated me!  I’m not an obvious choice really: not really had any interest in kit cars, only basic car mechanical knowledge, but have had a Chimaera and did some work on that in the past (well come to think of it, that’s a kit-car!).

 

So anyway, I went to have a look and was persuaded that ‘everything was all there”:

 

 

 

 

But some items seemed a little the worse for wear, due to the barn roof being far from weatherproof:

 

What did give me some confidence though was the apparent care the late owner had taken over itemising:

 

So I decided to give it a go.  However, there was a slight snag: the chassis wasn’t available to see at the time (it was blocked behind another barn) but I was assured that it “had been covered up”.  Having collected all the body parts and components and transported them to my home I awaited the call to go and get the chassis…  The call finally came and off I went with a trailer and here is what I found:

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And this was after we pulled the undergrowth away.  To be fair, it had been covered up at sometime, but the blue tarp had literally rotted away – so my guess is that sometime was in fact quite a long time... 

 

Now, they say God loves a trier (and my parents always said that I was very trying), so having duly extracted the chassis from the undergrowth and loaded it up onto a trailer we set off home:

 

It’s on my drive, everything else is in the shed and I think you can guess why I’ve joined here ;-)  I'll have a good read around the forum first, so hopefully won't be asking anything that's obviously answered elsewhere, but please be gentle with me (at first, anyway!) as I'm feeling a little bit 'in at the deep end' right now.

 

R

 

 

[SootySport]

Well Hi Ralph,  that's a humdinger of a project there. You've come to the right place for answers, the collective can help you through this.   First thing to do is assess the spaceframe chassis, the chassis Guru is SteveD on this forum, he's the only man outside the Westfield factory that is qualified to sort this out for you.     The rest of the car, take it bit by bit and ask away in the relevant forum.

Wish the best of luck with this, it'll come together in the end.

[greenandmean]

Hope to see it running next week  Seriously don't be afraid to ask any question if you feel the need, don't feel you have to go it alone. Take it one step at a time, think you might want a new starter motor though

[Norman Verona]

Welcome to the club Ralph, you'll get plenty of advice. Best place for techie matters is Tech Talk.

 

Seeing as you're in Devon and SteveD is in Cheshire it may be a bit far to go. I would advise get it sand blasted locally and then have a close inspection. Any damage should be obvious. Get all the suspension off first and get that sand blasted as well. When you refit the suspension fit new bushes, springs and shock absorbers. 

 

If you're not sure about the engine then it may be a good idea to get the head off for inspection. Any doubt and get it refreshed, by that I mean a deglaze, new pistons and new big end and main crank bearings. It's also probably worth cleaning the head and valves as well. The gearbox can be inspected by removing the top cover but I suspect, as long as it's not full of water to be servicable. Same with the diff.

 

Clean the rest of it as you go and you should have it assembled by spring.

 

There you go, easy really

 

ed to add that the chassis and related parts can be powder coated or painted. If painting I would use chassis paint as it's soft and doesn't chip. Paint like Hammerite sets rock hard and stone chips will crack the surface and allow water in.

[Marto303]

Welcome Ralphy

 

You'll be pleased to know we love a build thread here, or a re-build thread in your case

 

Good thing is your in the right place for any help or advise you might need

[Wile E. Coyote]

Welcome Ralphy.

At risk of being the harbinger of bad news.... is that engine complete?  

 

If not, take stock early on of the bits you're missing and price them all up.  Not sure if situation is different for the RST, but certainly on the Cossie, not all parts remain easily available (or can be very expensive).  

 

Would not be fun to discover, late in the rebuild, that missing bits mean that it might have been cheaper (and less frustrating) to factor an engine swap in early on.

[Mark (smokey mow)]

Welcome Ralphy you obviously enjoy a challenge and I look forward to seeing how it turns out

Best of luck

[Meakin]

Welcome ralphy lots of help available here. Having a look at the pictures the chassis doesn't strike me as too bad (obviously its impossible to tell from photos but there doesn't seem to be any glaring problems just a touch of surface rust) the fact that its been on its wheels so not directly lying on the ground is good. A good strip down and wash to have a look. Sand blasting as suggested is a good idea but an initial inspection may highlight any potential problems at joints etc. Bubbled paint is a sign of rust under the surface.

When I had my "barn find" I found it was easy to see if anything was amiss with a stripped chassis.

The engine may be another matter as suggested it might be worth going a different engine route if things are missing or something looks wrong.

Keep us up to date

Good luck and have fun with the build

Paul

[KugaWestie]

Welcome along!

 

Best of luck with this project

[FILFAN]

Welcome along bud. You have come to the right place

[AidanPlace]

Welcome and good luck. It's just a giant meccano kit........honest. Looking forward to your progress.

 

Aidan 

[ralphy]

Thanks for the kind welcome and the advice: both welcome.

 

I’ve been stripping the running gear off and so far the chassis is looking pretty good:

 

 The worst area for rust is the driver’s footwell as water has been lying there:

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Most of the wishbones look like they’ll blast up ok, the worst is again the drivers side front:

 

I’ve started removing the aluminum panels, carefully drilling out the rivet heads and punching the remainder into the chassis (aren’t there bl**dy loads of them!), the adhesive is very strong though and it’s taking some time to cut through it, but at least the weather was good today – as you can tell I’m doing this outside on the trailer:

 

Been having a good nosey around the forum and it’s been really useful, you guys have some fantastic-looking Westfields! 

 

Please do chip in with any advice, tips or suggestions!

 

R

 

PS  I’m thinking of a different engine as a local garage has a Zetec in good condition, moreover they’re prepared to fit it as and when I’ve got the car ready. 

[FILFAN]

i think a good sandblast followed by a powder coating then use the ally panels as templated for some nice carbon

 

we are very good at spending your money on here 

[Meakin]

If money is tight, a flak wheel or wire brush on drill to take it back to steel on your chassis. You want something to take off the surface rust but not harm the metal. You can then hand paint it with chassis paint (frost do a good selection). 

 

Second look at footwell, I would take off the ali, then a good rub down (using either the above or by hand). As long as it cleans up and no obvious cracks/rust inside I think you'll be fine. The chassis was well built at the time so it may be looking worse than it is.  Its hard to see the far right hand corner but rest looks ok to me. Its whether or not the water has sat inside the tube and attacked from the inside. You'll be able to tell the strength of joints and tube as you clean it up. If water has been sitting in the chassis it may be worth getting rust inhibitor to spray inside the tube. Something like this http://www.frost.co.uk/eastwood-internal-frame-coating-with-spray-nozzle.html

 

 

Someone like SteveD will be able to tell you more as he is a real expert in this field. 

 

Paul

[Mark (smokey mow)]

A wire wheel in an angle grinder worked best for me when stripping the paint off my old narrow chassis, but be warned it creates a lot of dust if you're doing it inside.

Personally looking at the two rusty tubes in the footwell I'd be tempted to cut them out and replace with new metal rather than trying to clean them up. It'll also then give you a chance to check inside to box section to gauge if there may be any internal corrosion to any of the other chassis tubes.

You'll find plenty of help and advise on the forum should you need it for a bit of inspiration this was the rebuild of my narrow http://forum.wscc.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic/88905-smokey’s-narrow-rebuild/?p=893554