How heavy is a chassis meant to be? My chassis (having arrived from Luego) has roll bar welded on, steel floor and all brackets and powder coated but it seems to be really heavy. Two of us struggled to get it into the garage. I this about right, just wondering whether luego use thick walled tubing.

cheers
fin

I weighed mine just before I welded in the floor, it was 55kgs, I think it must be upto about 70kgs by now

Fin,

Yeah Stuart and I also struggled to get ours from out of the van we picked it up in and into the garage. I stood "inside" the back section underneath the rollbar and shuffled along whilst Stu lifted the front. Not sure how heavy it was and I wish now that we'd weighed it before starting. One guy we know of weighed absolutely everything before attaching it to the chassis which means that he roughly had the overall weight for the SVA forms.

With regard to the steel Luego use. I phone Grant the other day to ask that very question because we need to drill through some chassis rails to mount our fireblade engine mounts. We are then placing steel spacers in between the tubing to stop them from crushing when a bolt is tightened. Grant said that they should be 1" square section 16swg which is a wall thickness about 1.6mm. Sometimes they order 1" and get 25mm but mostly it should be the 1" stuff.

If I were you I'd get a set of bathroom scales out and sit the chassis on top to see what it says. If like Mark's it's around the 60-70kg area then I'd not be too concerned. That gives you another 400 odd with all the extra stuff before it's getting too heavy.

I very much like to know too how heavy yours is before you start bolting bits on too. Ours is now too far advanced to weigh easily although we are going to have to work out a way of doing so before SVA

Why dont you weigh it on a set of bathroom scales.

Put the scales under one of the wheels and make note of the weight, then do the same with the others. Add them all up and you have your total weight. This also give you your weight distribution. Just remember to put blocks under the other wheels while weighing it.

This should be accurate enough for what you need.

Not got wheels on yet, but ill do that tonight and post it here.

just the chassis (IRS) with all brackets, steel floor, welded in roll bar(just like the one in stuartA's photo section) and powder coat come to. 26.4 kg on the front, 72 on the back.

Hmm... heavier than I thought it would be but I'm not that suprised having had to lift a similar chassis myself.

I guess roughly 99kgs isn't that heavy really. It does mean that Stuart and I may have to go on a diet to keep the overall weight down

And Stu if you reply to this with any comment about me being a fat b*st'd, I'll... I'll... I'll have to agree

Would I ever dare suggest such a thing

I have just started planning a project and reading through the book makes me a little confused. On page 53 Fig 4.16 it is stated that the weight is around 35 lb. I have problems reaching this weight in my CAD design. I also imported Jim McSorley's CAD model and that weighs 35 kg (not lb.) This issue might have been resolved before so maybe someone can confirm my suspicion that there is a typo in the book?

[Edited on 27/3/03 by e020518]

IIRC, the picture showing dear old Ron with a complete chassis held up in the air is actually an aluminium one. Bit of a cheat. Not sure about the quoted weights in the book as it's a while since I look at it.

Anyone else weighed just the chassis to get a comparison?

mine so far is 54 lbs... this is the basic chassis no suspension components at all.

floor welded in?

quote:

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Originally posted by 79 civic
mine so far is 54 lbs... this is the basic chassis no suspension components at all.

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it is just the basic frame, no floor, no roll bar, just the basic chassis ive been working on it for nearly a month now.
ive got plenty of time since all i do is go to school come home and work on it. im still in highschool and my knowledge in the automotive world is pretty vast since i have been working on them since 5th grade. i am now a junior in highschol. it is still missing a few of the triangulation tubes but it is mostly there

25 kg seems light. Please review the frame and properties below. Frame made with 16swg tubing.
Rescued attachment Weight calculation.jpg

it does not have past the rear bulkhead either, so that may account for about 10-15lbs. like i said earlier, it is basically barely there.i still ned to put in some cros bracing and the floor, and i also need to fit the engine mounting points.

This might be a bit pedantic, but I recon you could calc the weight fairly accurately.

The density of steel is 7.8 SG. 100mm x 100mm x 100mm of water weighs 1 kilo. The same volume of steel will weigh 7.8 kilos.

So as an example, a 2400 x 1200 x 1.6mm sheet of steel should weigh approx 36 kilos.

That slightly bolloxes up the book weight as you need just about a sheet to do the floor.

inch rhs weighs about 1.2 kilos per metre on the same basis.

When I totalled up the lenghts of the tube 2 years ago it came to around 45 metres. Thats another 55 - 60 kilos for the tubing.


Im sure you could work it out if you look at the material your gonna use.

Im gonna take my anorak off now.

atb

steve