Early 2B Chassis What Is It Made Of?

[Guest Stevejones748]

I have an early 2b chassis and I need to carry out some fabrication. Is the tubing mild steel or stainless?

[agent_zed]

is it rusty?

 

stainless will still be shiny if it is mild steel there will be rust somewhere

 

if not scratch a bit of paint off somewhere inconspicuous and put a bit of water on and leave it overnight. you'll see rust if it is mild

[Guest Roy P]

What about checking with a magnet, decent stainless steel should not be magnetic

[Guest Stevejones748]

It's been bead blasted and primed before I got it and no sign of rust. Will check it out tomorrow with a magnet. Cheers guys.

[theduck]

Pretty sure the stainless RH used wasn't good enough quality to not be magnetic.

[Guest TerryBarry]

My chassis is stainless and a magnet sticks to it like glue.

Got a feeling it's 308 or similar

[Guest Ian & Carole]

Mine is a mild steel one, you had the choice at point of order.

 

I knew I wanted to change certain bits and bobs on the chassis, like adding seat belt mounts and certain, in my opinion, flaws in the chassis construction, so opted for m/steel.

Edited February 5, 2015 by Ian & Carole

[Dave R]

if stainless, it will be 304, the welds on both the stainless and the mild chassis will go rusty as they used the same mig wire for both

[Grim]

My car is also an early sliding pillar model (since converted to wishbones, twice).

 

i've tried a magnet on my stainless body/chassis, and different bits are magnetic and non-magnetic. I suspect the body is mainly 304 as it is totally non magnetic, but shows a little corrosion here and there (probably due to road salt and the fact that mine never gets washed).

The roll over bar is probably 304 as it's totally non magnetic. The rest of the chassis is probably something like 301, with a slightly lower nickel content, as it gets slightly magnetic where it has been bent (301 would also be the cheapest 300 series stainless). However, every car is probably different, depending on where tricky dicky got his tubes from that day!

Edited February 6, 2015 by Grim

[Guest Stevejones748]

I've checked out the whole boby and is most defiantly mild steel. Surface corrosion around scratched paintwork and inside exposed tubing ends and a magnet sticks all over. Thanks for all your help guys.