crack in chassis tube (now with pic)

[John Scherrer]

It looks like the engine mounting bracket has been removed from the original tube and re-welded to the new tube .. hence the slightly different gaps etc .. the welds look different where the bracket joins the tube ..

[dc5ian]

can you take a pic of your one john to compare.

[John Scherrer]

The engine mounting brackets are different on the '3' ..

Offside engine mount

[Zumbruk]

Blimey, I can weld better than that.

[smokin]

Stripping my '05 Atom 2 down to have the chassis blasted and recoated and found this

[smokin]

The fracture has originated at the end of the weld (see rear view)

Ian, how did you get yours fixed?

Anyone else suffered this?

Recommend all Atom 2 owners check theirs now

[wattie]

That's not good
Hope you can rectify it simply.
Cheers Wattie

[dc5ian]

welded it up. been a year few thousand miles and a few track days still holding up...

its a common prob, ive seen it on a number of atoms.

if it happened again i would replace that tube.

[smokin]

Cheers.

I may contact the factory as a structural fault like this being 'common' is unacceptable and could have been down right dangerous had it failed on the road.

Having also suffered the leaky fuel tank shortly after purchase (second hand) and taken it up-the-arse as far as the factory's bill for sorting it, and then finding out they acknowledged it was a bad batch of tanks, I'm not best pleased.

See how I feel in the morning. Thanks again.

[John Scherrer]

I'm with you but to say it's common is probably not accurate ..

[Atom]

For as much as you pay for these vehicles this should not happen, I could see a home built project maybe doing this but a professional shop, unacceptable . This should be taken care of at the expence of Ariel to resolve this issue. Maybe they need to use a thick wall tubing for the engine cradle instead of that .083 that they use.

[Richard Marler]

How much are you paying to blast the whole chassis and have it re-powdercoated?

[ChuckUK]

If it was a main stream brand it would be a recall, Ariel call those a new model 

[smokin]

My bro-in-law works in GKNs prototyping dept. so he's gonna sort the weld for me.

I should really push it in the factory's direction but to be honest I just can't be bothered with the hassle. I've done all other work myself so intend to keep it that way and use local shops when it's beyond me.

GKN also have a powder coat shop (with an oven you can fit a bus in) but I'm also engaging with a local firm, as whilst I'll only have to pay for materials at GKN it won't be top priority. Don't have a price yet from the other firm.

[Atom]

But these are the tube that support the power that gets the HP to the ground. You can't have this happening or someone could get hurt.