A Sure Foundation Comparing the Jule Frame to the Healey Original Cros ur years ago, {visited Jule Enterprises while on business in Canada, As 3 metsllurgical engineer, U wanted t0 evaluate the Surveturat differences this option offered, Mactin Jansen, owner of Jule Enterprises, and I discussed the weaknesses of the original frame andthe potential improvements affered by the replacement chassis, Having owned 2 1006 for cighteen years, have become very aware Of the lightweight design of the original frames and the severity of degradation these frames can suffer ‘As [ would discover, the Jule ceplace- ‘meat frame is produced using methods well established by numerous modern day shops specializing in aftermarket frame re placements for sireet rods. These methods Lcorporste the use of gas metal are (MIG) ‘welding and commercially available hollow Mtovetursl tubing. Maay street tod frame manufacturers adverixe the use of 17 inch wall 2c inch eubing. The Jule frarne uses. US inch wall 3 «4 inch tubing s0 as to pro- vide the proper width for the Healey suse joa brackets, and same depth of oil pan “protection.” For those unfamiliar with of poor attempe to solve main rail compression _ bucking. Rear sect Jule chassis 12 Apa 2000 Healey Marque Ma stexctural tubing, it is actually 3 strip of sheet metal that hs been railed to form the corners, butt welded along one seam, and then pulled through more ‘lls 10 achieve The original Austin-Healey frame was fabricated by welding wo O72 inch thick "C™ channel stampings together to form a tox shaped tube, The welding of these Mampings was performed using tongitud nal edge welds, These cige welds were Uikely selected for ee significant fabacation advantages, which include: lower tendency ta warp. ease of inspection aad ability (0 hide joi misalignmert. The iabnested box shaped tubes (ie. ais) ad two flat parallel surfaces on the lop sur- face, with a 3/4 inch eight transition at about the rear shock towers, The bottom Surfaces of these main frame fails display 3 comtant bow. Maximum tube height, ¢ inches. occurs at about the forward sutriggers. Tube Beight atthe forward and Me ends Of the cat are 3 inches and 2 inches respectively. At this point, [ Delieve it is sppropriate to state that some enthusiasts steongly abject to seeing a non-onginal frame under a car, Serious thought should be ikea before replacing a (rame, as this is expen sive and need not be performed twice, My advice is to be confident in structure, Split front cross member. Right control arm repate brakes and suspension. These items ace critical toe safe operation wf the vehicle “The feame is the foundation of the eae. During 1999. Me. Jansen asked if f ‘would preseat a quantitative comparison of the original Austin-Healey 100/3000 chassis versus the Jule replaccmene chay> sis at the 1999 St. Louis Conclave. AS a amerallugical engine, this sounded iater~ etting, 0 H accepted. The following is that comparison. My iss step was to perform a search for information about the acceptance tests peiformed by Donald and Geoifrey Healey ‘regarding the original frames. Pages 40-0 of The Healey Story by Gealtrey Healey ‘proved quite valuable, Donald Healey had. recognized torsional stiffness contnbuted to handling and specified that the feome ‘as to have torsional stiffness equivalent to the Nash-Healey N type. He also stated. that the frame was 10 have 3 maximum al- towable frame bending stress. Untortw nately. Geoff did not reveal siress value, Geoff did state, the torstonal test was_ pert method of holding the froat shock towers fied and applying weight tote rer sng angers T wrote 3 ewer to Englang and asked sbout the frame testing. Me. Barry Bilbie (Healey frame draftsman) replied, and ke Buckling of left rail. Patching an right rail, Decayed front onthought he remembered a leverage bar being fastened to the frame atthe rear axle focation. As he remembered the tess, ‘weights were applied to one end of the bur to apply torsional frame stress Both of these sources, Mr. Healey nnd Mr. Bilbie, indicated that the structure of the car was tested using static conditions to verity the design. Fatigue (ie. dynamic) testing was not performed. [decided the quantitaiive comparison should include reverse engineering and -production of these original design crite- cia. It was decided fo mathernatieally ealeu- late the static frame bencing siress and te- perform the Geoil Healey torsional test on both an original BJS frame and.a Sule frame, In order to estimate the bending stress along the main frame tubes. the overall weight of the car and ils heaviest compo: ens would have 10 be determined. Me. Jansen drove two cars, 3 BJ7 and a BIB, to the local weigh station and had the front axle, sear aule and overall weight recorded. The average (otal weight of these two cars (without drives or passenger) was 2.680 pounds, The dlisinbution of beth Sars was 48.5% front and $1.5% reas Weight of a fully dressed BN4 motor and insmission in my garage including ex. haust manifold. tor and starter was determined to be 764 pounds. Taking these weights and spring forees in to account, an ANSYS computer model was generaied fand given the task of applying the other 1,916 pounds to the frame ac four locations: front shock towers, forward outnggers rar outtiggers, and rear cross member, The riputer model results were plotied on an enginecring bending moment diagram, (continued on page 17) — —_— Original frame Jule frame Weight (lower is better) 135 pounds 215 pounds | Wall thiekness (AISC 0.072 inch 0.125 inch coge is 0.088 Inch min.) Maximum bending siress 7,830 psi 4,580 psi (lowar Iz batter) 1,580tt, Ib./degree Torsional stiffness (higher is better) 635 It. Ib /degree Torsion Test, Practical | ‘Sumit weighs 9 allow 093 04 woasured LF Denlecien, ‘192° fom torsional ais (50° ram aspen at eter outrigger) Frama was rveie, 9 tat Bowed lowe ‘aatace was rtanaion during test. Pocward hock towers Seson bere towers, Anaem Misermerta rom nous, and outage ‘were weased to fame. Sas wore not present | Regie |W We'gr Apates 152 3 rom torsional aie 1" lat = 0.560 neh dlaction at 0 ice chassis caped with fl Discarded chassis. N > wall Bottom rail Severe decay of spring carrier ~ rear outrigger Poor attempt ir very common problems with engine mount, control arm bre and chassis buckling ower front bulkhead Common finding in Healey Marque Magazine ApJule Chassis (contineed from page 13) This diagram revealed that the maximum siaite bending moment on the main frame rails is about 747 ftulb., and is located at the junction of the forward outriggers. Incor- ing the varying box section height of me railsas a function of length, maxi- mum static bending siress along the bot tom surface of the main frame rails at ite junction of the forward outriggsts is 7.620 Psi ‘$0 as to determine the static safety fac- tor of the original frame design, [ removed same metal from ihe main frame ratls of my BN, Mechanical testing revealed the yield smgth to be approximately 35,000 pst and the ultimate tensile strength 10 be approxi mately $0,000 psi. These values indicate that the original safely factor to prevent vielding of the frame is about §.9. 4 book by Me. Forbes Aird suggests 3 seatie safety factor of 6 is typically ated in fis Iso't it interesting how well these numbers macch? Review of the eurrem Arnerican Instiie of Stee! Construction {AISC) and American Welding Society (AWS) codes suggest. however, that the static safety faetor stay not be is high. For Dox tubing of the 3 x 4 ineh size, the AWS code speetfies & minimain wall thickness of 0. Kinch. The AISC avnimurs wall thickness per cade is 0.085 inch, The AISC cede is probably she more accurale Of the two, as it was significantly overhauled in 1961 to beter ac count for buckling of thin walled cubing. Note, this was 10 years after the Big Healey was designed. This means that the 5.9 static safety factor for the original thumes may not be achievable due Sompressive buckling of the tube atu lower stress. Buckling of the main frame fails has occurrexkto my BN forw: ‘and in partieular around the motor mounts, AISC code is accurately predicting the behavior of tubing, { wied w decipter the AISC code requires thinner than 0.088 inch, but the requited amount of inform was more tnan I had avaiable, {looked up the gaaxe size nearest 10 0.08 ‘gauge), For the rea: sons stated above, itis my opinion grat replacement frantes snould tbs produced in 13 gauge of heavier material to avoid premature backling “The Jule frome is manufucnared from U9 inch wall 3x4 inch ret Jor tubing. This twbing has sufficient wall thickness to meet both AWS and AISC code requirements. us would be expected since no modem day mantfaciurer of hallow struciurl tubing wants the liability of producing non-code compliant product. Us- ing the sume bending moment of 747 fb, the maximem static bending stress on the lower surface of the matn frame rails atthe forwand outrigger is lowered t0 4.580 psi. The Jule frame, therefore, hhas a stage bending strength 40k greatse than the ongiagl. This improvement in stcength would noiicexbly ceduce the amount of frante deflection under the same loading conditions “Forsional testing was performed as Jule Enterprises. An origi nal BJS frame with » bull welded paich in the rear cross member was tested. New original siyle outriggess Were installed. The fearte sas inverted so us to pus the bottom surface in tensiog dang the test, just as iis in service while delving down the rod. Metal blocks were placed uriler a forward stock tower and the diago sally opposite outrigger atthe leaf soning bracket, A lever arm was firnily actachsd to the outsigger on the ale side af the frame, just outboard of the leaf spring bracket. The other forward shock ower was held fim by placing metal blocks under it and a weight in excess of 800 Ib, oft top af it. Me. Mike Allore showed up with ligmedt i. Front chutssis repair two height gauges and assisted with the test. A height gauge was placed over the leaf spring bracket wath the attached lever artn. and ver the diagonally opposite forward shock cower with the 300 tb. cad. Weights were applied to a specific location an the lever arm and beight gauge readings were reconted with exch weight addi- tion, No movement of the forward shock tower was permitted, as was confirmed by the height gouge. A linear lot of weight Jule Chassis versus defection was produced. Torsional sweagsa of the origi aa frame was calculated 19 be 635 ft-lb /degree of cwist ‘This same torsional test procedure was reproduced on ibe Jule frame, The linear plot for the fule frame cevealed its torsional serength was 1.550 fe-lb Jdegree of canst. Ths was a [40% im provement over the original Austin-Healey frame. ‘Weights of the rwo frames were recorded and metal efficiency calculated. The original frame weighed 135 pounds, The Jule frame ‘weighed 215 pounds. Torsional efficiency of the two frames was 4.70 (tb degree! Ub.) for the original frame and 7.21 (ftib/de- s7eeV Ib, for the fule frame, The iele frame, hough 301. heavier, ras more efficient in resisting applied torque. ‘Visual appearance of the two érarmes is sila, Some details are erent between the onginal Austin-Healey frame and the Jule feame. The front cross member lower surface on an onigital Aus- tia-Healey frame ison the same plane as the main frame rls. Tas lower ross member surface is 1 inch above the lower sustace of the main frame rails on 3 fale frame. since the main frame cat on a Jule frame are 2 constant 3X 4 inch hetght. The “L” flanges on the outboard side of the shock towers (facing the cod! springs) are bof s constanc curve design on the original Healey frame. The Tule ceplacement framte uses (wo straight leagths of “L" flange welded together atthe intersection to simulate the curve. Sway bar atach- meats for the original frames are spot welded ous inside the tubes, The Jule frame uses self-chreading screws directly into the mhickness of the 1/8 iach thick main frame cails. Rear suspension differences are a thicker redesigned rear shock tower plate, and leat spring brackets designed specifically for use of BJ-8 springs and_ shackles Thave never driven a Jule framed car. so I can aot offer this comparison, But, with jomewnere around mo hundred of these Frames having been produced to date. chances are somebody ™iit Healey Marque Magazine April 2000