welding questions..110 cut, stretched to 130

Hiya.
im getting myself ready for my chassis stretch, a couple of question i need help with please.
is it stronger or better to cut my chassis on a angle
lap joint or butt joint, if i do the butt joint , i would be welding in overlap sections on the inside of the chassis.
also when i cut the chassis is there any places where i could run a level to make sure its all going to line up and be straight, dont wont to get carried away and weld up a bananna.
there will be more questions later im pretty sure.
thanks ian

I've not done this job on a Land Rover but a number of years ago we did something similar to a Triumph Herald chassis as part of making a kit car. It might be a good idea to make up a temporary jig to keep everything lined up with a position for the unstretched chassis and a (carefully measured and squared up) position for the stretched one. The backbone of ours was a railway sleeper that we found washed up on a nearby beach. But any stout pieces of wood or spare lengths of metal could be used. We made up some rectangular tubes the right size to fit inside the chassis rails, then once the chassis was cut these could be slipped inside the cut ends and everything could be slid about until we got it in the right position. Then a bit of diagonal measuring to check it was still square, rather than a parallelogram.Then the inner sections could be welded to the chassis and a few holes drilled so the outer skin could be plug welded to the inner skin. Then an outer section could be fabricated and fitted to the stretched part so it was the same size as the original chassis and these could be drilled and plug welded to the inner pieces and seam welded to the original chassis. Once we'd got a bit of welding done so nothing was going to move we took it off the jig so the chassis could be turned over so gravity could help the welding process, rather than having to weld upside down. With the Triumph it is possible to shim the suspension mounts to compensate for imperfections and get the track and camber you want, but with a Land Rover you've got to get it right first time as there's less room for adjustment.

iwallace said:

Hiya.
im getting myself ready for my chassis stretch, a couple of question i need help with please.
is it stronger or better to cut my chassis on a angle
lap joint or butt joint, if i do the butt joint , i would be welding in overlap sections on the inside of the chassis.
also when i cut the chassis is there any places where i could run a level to make sure its all going to line up and be straight, dont wont to get carried away and weld up a bananna.
there will be more questions later im pretty sure.
thanks ian

Click to expand...

butt joint with over lapping flitch plates, top is flat between rear trailing arm chassis mount and forward youd want to add steel just forward of that mount

jigg time thinking

DON'T FORGET THAT 130's ARE ACTUALLY 127" WHEELBASE.

cheers rougharse.

Just double-checking and the attached Land Rover UK document confirms that a 130 is 127".
http://www.landroverweb.com/Pdf-files/Land_Rover_Defender_2008_dimensions.pdf

that will be handy, thanks