Well lets hear it. Keen to hear real and honest stories about reproduction chassis. To be fair please don’t hang out people or suppliers but tell us your good and/or bad experience with a chassis. Do name the chassis. Also was/is the car/chassis used off roads (raids etc.)

Seconded... I'd like to hear specific issues with specific chassis?!

We've got an older 2cv City chassis* on mums red spesh. Other than an issue with a bolt kept coming out (and letting go of a shock absorber) it's been fantastic so far. Mum's route into Sheffield involves country lanes and some of the worst pot-holes known to mankind, it even did a considerable amount of fording (following the South Yorks floods of 2007) and hasn't shown any signs of deterioration.

*has 2CV CITY spelt out in holes on one of the cross members, I understand the newer ones are different

My Dad's had an SLC on one of his cars for 13 years now, and it remains as good as it was on the day it was fitted (it also went together perfectly - ie. the fit was spot on and all bolt holes were in the right place). He's got an equally good GW chassis on his other car, but they're not made any more.

I've got Citroen chassis on all of my cars, though - sometimes due to cost (I've fitted 2nd hand ones), or because they're still the original ones. Personally though, I do prefer original chassis to most of the UK-built ones I've tried because I like the way they handle.

I've heard a few bad things about 2cv City chassis' (cracking/too flexible/low crash strength), though I've never owned a car with one on.

I believe I have an SLC chassis under my car, had somebody recently tell me it was so. I've never had a problem with it, I've had the car over 7yrs and some 106,000miles and the car came fitted with the chassis for £460

I've had 2cvs with original chassis and they do drive much smoother and handle much better than with an after-market chassis.

If I had the money to do so, I'd have an original chassis fitted, because no matter how good an after-market replacement is, it'll never be as good as an original. But given my current financial constraints, having what I have now, I'm more than happy for the time being.

I think that's down to people not setting the spring cans up properly, without the correct amount of can movement.

Given how soft 2cv suspension is, I can't see how chassis flex can do anything but hurt ride/handling, unlike on other cars with considerably stiffer suspension. OTOH, bad setup is going to murder it. IIRC from the old days of the 2cv-l YahooGroup, one of the Aussies (Chris Stuart) did a lot of work to get his car's suspension right, and the differences from spring can adjustment, ride height adjustment and damper choice were dramatic.

Of our fleet, I seem to recall that Sparky's got a GW underneath, whilst there's a nice shiny new SLC sat next to the garage ready for bits of AK to move over. Everything else has been on original Citroen, bar one D*lly which was on a replacement Citroen. Oh, then there was the 4x4, obviously...

There's been so many different chassis manufacturers over the years - some probably making no more than a couple of chassis.

Hmmmmm Interesting. Can you explain the bit about the can movement? I'm always happy to shift my bias, if I can improve the set-up, I'll be very happy

This one has a GW Fabrications chassis - it looks like girder box sections welded together rather than the 2CV city type. When we got it in 1999 (I think) it was £20 (again I think) more expensive to have it galvanised than painted black. In any case we put 5litres of waxoyl down each side and between the top and bottom plates.
I don't think he makes them any more, but despite choosing it purely on cost, I am happy with it 10years later.

You're familiar with the basic theory, that the can on most A-series moves fore-and-aft against the rubber doughnuts, to "pre-tension" the rear suspension? The doughnuts are mounted on threaded supports. Move those in towards the can or out away from it, and you "tighten" or "slacken" the can. There's a "correct" position.

Can I find the old emails, though...?

Adrian,
from what I recall of my correspondence with Chris, it wasn't so much the end float of the cans which he'd got wrong on his first Raid Oz, but the much more common mistake of having the corner weights all over the shop.
His car was 'perched' across a diagonal, so that far too much weight was being taken by one front corner and the diagonally opposite rear corner.

As an extreme example of this, on an aks400 which I worked on earlier this year, I found that one of the canisters has been replaced with an Ami Super canister, which had been made to fit by shortening the (originally front) tie rod.
The chap who'd owned it for the preceding 5 years finally understood why it handled in a manner which could only be described as 'lethal'...

From what I've seen, checking the corner weights is something that is very rarely addressed during the majority of chassis changes undertaken by either amateurs of professionals, reliance being placed instead on equalising the lengths of the threads projecting from the shackles at either end of the car, which doesn't always work.
However, even without access to corner weight gauges, a reasonable job can be carried out by using the 'tripod' method...

I'd agree that ride height settings, canister end float adjustment, choice of damper (and also adjustment of front bump stops?) all play their part in setting a car up to handle well.
Perhaps it's worth mentioning correct installation of dampers as well, since I found some on an aks400 at the w/e which were fitted back to front.
There are also those dampers sold for A series vehicles which will never work correctly, no matter which way round or up they're installed...

ken.

A chassis from Barbour 4x4 for 2 wheel drive cars will be on sale in the near future, it will be strengthened for raids ECT.