I am in the midst of putting together a chassis for a new project. At the moment it is held together with 1/4"BSF high tensile bolts and nuts. Ideally hot riveting is the proper way to do it.
Now has anyone had any experience of running a car with a bolted chassis and how successful was it?
Thanks in advance,
Robert.

Location: Deepest darkest Kent.

Hello Robert. I was told a long time ago that Rolls-Royce chassis were bolted together as they could be tightened when they slackened whereas rivets could not be 'tweaked.'
So if it was good enough for Sir Henry then it would be good enough for me.
Regards
Stuart

Location: Staffordshire: the creative county.

When I built my trials car up in 2001 the chassis was 2 rails and the nosepiece,so bolted it together.Its done at least 100 tough trials and been no problem.

During the rebuild of one of our cars about 20 years ago I had to remove the rear cross member, which resembled a banana, to straighten it and was faced with a similar problem on reassembly. I finally settled on fitted bolts, the side rails still attached to the front cross member, rear extensions & rear cross member were assembled with 1/4" bolts together with the rear springs and rear axle. Everything was tightened up and then the holes were reamed out one at a time and I think I used 5/16" bolts secured with Loctite. I'd done this before without the springs and axle fitted and found that the axle wouldn't fit the springs and had to repeat the exercise. The car has now done about 45,000 miles with no signs of anything coming undone. I know of one person to turn the bolt head down to look like a rivet but that I didn't fancy that if anything needed tightening.

Like Dave Dye, the chassis of my trials car is pretty much all bolted and has been since I built it as a Special in 1993/94. It was re-bodied as a Chummy in 2007 and at that time the chassis was cleaned and re-painted but needed no tightening of chassis bolts despite being trialled extensively. It's continued to be trialled extensively since 2007 - heaven knows how many trials it's done in total - and the chassis has still never needed any further work. Bolts used were HT 1/4" BSF.

Steve

Location: North Yorkshire

Hi, when i built my Ulster in 1981-86 i just used tha ex-scrapyard '29 chassis as it came (+some paint), it seemed straight and solid, and was riveted (probably the originals), It was fine, for 10s of thousands of miles, and then one day Isabel had a monumental accident, opening lap of A7 race at Mallory. As part of the rebuild after the crash i got Julian Ghosh to straighten it all out, fit a new front crossmember (this had been previously damaged on a Land's End Trial) and re rivet (hot) the whole chassis back together properly. When i recieved the frame back it had a stiffness that was never there before, like a tuning fork. The car was transformed, it felt alive on the road, had better handling and rode better. I think the tight springy chassis puts the handling emphasis back on the suspension.
Since then the Ulser has trialled, raced, holidayed and became a saloon for a while, when as a trials car it still had a certain litheness. Then it snogged a Nissan Navarra front bumper. The car was stripped and rebuilt, evolving my ulster bits out of it (bent again) and was rebuilt onto a partially bolted chassis. It now feels floppy in comparison, it has little torsional rigidity. When jacked up on one side the doors jam and it twists a great deal. The Ulster chassis is with Julian again!
Hot riveting is not difficult, especially if you have a helper. If bolting was the answer Austin would have bolted it. An alternative to traditional hot riveting may be to cold rivet it using a hydraulic press. Make a pair of steel 'snaps' and manhandle it about......
Good luck, W

Thank you all for your replies, it gives me some feedback from realists not theorists.

Location: Deepest darkest Kent.

It is remarkable that a difference between bolts and rivets is detectable, esp if no obvious fretting of the bolts.

Fitted bolts in reamed holes very different from basic clamping.

I guess hot rivets accommodated slight offset of holes. Presumably in small diameter an interference lateral fit remains after cooling, or were they finally finished cold?

Location: Auckland, NZ