The Peerless & Warwick Discussion Forum

Hanspeter:

This is a common problem, and there is no easy answer.

As far as I know, there are no "official" dimensioned factory drawings for a Peerless chassis.
I think Eric de Vries in Holland made some drawings when he rebuilt his chassis, but I don't
have a copy.

If you measure what you have in mm you will be easily confused, measure it in imperial inches
and it will make more sense, but do remember that dimensional accuracy wasn't that good.
The centre of the chassis is "flat", and the rise to the front cross rail will probably be two inches,
and the rise to the rear crossmember four inches.  Some chassis may appear to be twisted, but
it is the alignment of the wheels that is critical, not the positioning of the tubes that support them.

I've rebuilt two of these cars, and it's always easier to restore what you have rather than make
from new, although if yours is seriously rusted you may not have a choice.  If you can make a
mm perfect copy of your own chassis, at least all the components that you took off will go back!

Some more tips....

Restore the suspension components first, and rebuild it without front springs, and mount the wheels.
Before you finally weld in any replacement components check that the wheels are all aligned and
that the ride heights and camber angles are consistent.  There is very little diagonal bracing, and
things will distort alarmingly as welds cool.

If you can make it to Lincoln in July, you will learn a lot, and can see what others have done.

Good luck!

Frank from Felixstowe