Heinkel 'chassis' (under floor crossmember network thing)

[adi]

Does anyone happen to know where i can find a detailed picture/exploded view/blueprint showing what a Heinkel looks like from underneath?

The German Heinkel floor is about as useful as a piece of sheet metal, seriously its utter crap. It has no fixtures or fittings at all, its literally just a metal sheet. I could have made one myself if i knew they were that basic. Its just a square sheet of metal with ribs rolled into it. No holes for anything, no seat fittings, nothing. It doesnt EVEN have flanges on the edges! Even the ribs are not very well rolled!

So, now, i have to work out what stuff is missing from the German floor. I believe there is some kind of square type cross member structure for the rear axle, a couple of wierd triangular webs that join the sills to the firewall, and a cross member for the front axle. But i only know what they look like very very abstractly, a diagram would help alot.

Seriously, im in the wrong industry, i should be making bubble car parts! The german ones cost hundreds and are total crap, anyone with a rib-rolling machine thing (forgot what they are called in English) can make one in 20 mins! the British ones made by that guy that makes them are apparently very good, but they cost a small fortune.

[P50]

Pay your money take your choice...

Hacking's stuff is A1.............

[Big Al]

Somewhere I have an image of a blue print for a left hand drive Heinkel 153 I think. It will not show everything but it will at least give a scale layout. The floors do vary from model to model, especially for Right Hand Drive cars. The box sections changed at least once on left hand drive. The swages (spelling) also change but in principle the left hand is pretty much the same for those.

The reason the floor is difficult is because you have nothing to refer to on the car if the old floor has been binned. If the lower edges of the rest of the panels have gone there is no reference at all and very easy to get it wrong. One key thing is to dummy mount your steering/pedals to check the front floor is correct as if you get this wrong the assembly will foul or at worse not fit. The front axle has no box section and provides the front floor area bracing. There are gussets and additional panels to the inner wing and floor joint which is where the 8 bolts for axle mounting pick up. The box section and rails lie under the rear or main floor area. Jim's floors are very good and he knows what they are worth.

The last problem will be the insert for the mastercylinder and gubbins behind the hole for the steering column. This is not available as far as I am aware. I just sold one on eBay cheap to Japan so no one was looking! Also required is the hole for the steering bolt, a lot of peeps forget that which is good fun.

I will see if I can find the info but Dave Hambleton might have better at the Trojan Archive Trust.

[adi]

Luckily my car still has the front floor with the remains of the pedal cluster and the master cylinder/steering housing and stuff. At the moment im trying to sort out the rear floor, which is completely missing, along with most of the sills and those wierd triangular section things.

So, as far as i can gather, the floor and firewall look something like this (but drawn abstractly and not to scale).



I dont understand several things:

1) do the chassis members on the floor line up with the two stiffening members on the firewall?

2) what are the triangular things? Are they just a two-dimentional metal pressing that joins the floor to the sills and the rear rim, with round holes pressed in for strength?

[marcus]

The triangular fillets are important to the structural integrity of the rear end, the original ones had the holes punched and drawn into shallow "crater" shapes of a few mm, and the inner edges (facing the wheel) have a rolled-over edge of about 10 mm, so there is a small amount of 3D to make the panel more rigid. Some modern parts are flatter, but these should still be fine.
These holey fillets are sometimes made use of for holding spare oil, tools and components!
If you know anyone around with a complete one it is well worth having a few good looks and getting as many photos and measurements as possible, G-o-g-g-o lives close to me, and was amazingly patient and generous with his time when I was going through the same trouble as you, but on mine the chassis rails and engine mounts had completely rotted away!

[adi]

Mine dont have chassis rails or engine mounts either. The entire bottom end is plain MISSING, floor, 'chassis', engine mounts, the lot. Its very hard for me to work out how tall the actual car was because of this, since i got nothing to gauge the height of the sills on.

[marcus]

Exactly like mine was, 8 inches / 200 mm had completely rotted, a previous owner in Cornwall cut the sad remains out and hand-made a new floor with saw and hammer, and a floor subframe from a tubular steel table, but there were no bottom engine mounts. Although he had put in some holes, some were wrong! You will definitely need to have a good look at other Heinkels. I ended up making my own engine mounts out of angle iron, not similar to original, (probably stronger !), but as only about 1/3 of the car is "original", accuracy is not such an issue for me.
Where do you live, and are there any Heinkel Trojans near you?

[adi]

I had a look at a few pics and my own car, and i thiiiink i might get how it goes togethere now.

Basically, the cross section at the rear looks like this:



The floor is joined to the firewall, and the 'chassis' structure sticks out a little and forms the rear axle mounts. But the reinforcing bars that go across the firewall also mate with the sticking-out chassis members, for more rigidity.

Whereas in the middle, the wierd A frame type structure doesnt mate with anything on the floor. It just terminates at the end of the firewall, and is a firewall only structure?

Is that abit like what it should be?

[Big Al]

I have found the blueprint and scanned it. Now it my not load onto this site as it is a biggish amount of info since the drawing is faint. I have sent the thing to Root to put up. Otherwise contact me direct at alanbubblecars@hotmail.com.

Not welded a Heinkel myself as I do not do bodywork and my guy used to do the noshers for me. It looks about right. The bottom of the engine frame mounts onto the rear of the chassis rail on a rather strangely formed hole. This it the strongest point of the rear of the car. The unpright rails have a set that matches up to the centre which I imagine are on the car.

[Stuart Cyphus]

 'ere we go then, lets see what this does. (waits for the explosion)

[adi]

Hmm, well iv had a look at various places, including Jim Hacking's site (shame his pics are so small) and that blue print, and i thiiink i realize how its meant to go together.

What i for some reason didnt get is that the front chassis transverse crossmember actually sits on the joint between the front and rear floor! For some reason which i cannot explain, i thought it sat a little bit back, but now it seems totally illogical. I think its just not enough sleep and too much looking at tiny resolution pics of the WHOLE floor and not just the rear half!

So basically it looks like this:



The chassis members on the firewall mate to the chassis members on the floor. The middle A frame type structure of the firewall ends where the firewall ends, and i assume is just welded to the floor.

The red dots show what connects when the floor is in situ.

Does that look about right?

[marcus]

That looks about right!

[Big Al]

Yes that is the basic idea. The triangle panels lollow the line of the sill in a straight line which will come apparant I think as it is a two deminsional panel in a three dimentional position. I think you probobly have already got your head round that one.