Hi Jeff,
Now this post might seem like doom & gloom, but it's meant as a heads up about how imaginative these things can be where corrosion is concerned.
From the looks of that front crossmember you might be in for another unwelcome surprise because on my car, most of the real damage was in the rear section. I'd monitored the front crossmember when I drove it daily because, like the Elan design. that's where I expected most trouble but in the end I replaced metal at the back rather than the front.
Pictures tell it better than words....
#1, the upper section of the rear chassis leg, hidden under bodywork and only found when the body came off. Steel repair section welded in.
#2, same sort of area but under the battery, again the upper return section cut out & replaced together with the battery support section.
#3, the engine mount area in the vertical sections. This was the reason for lifting the body, I felt the handling was deteriorating and when I looked it was so bad that I suspected it was flexing when loaded on corners. Big repair on both sides and I almost scrapped the chassis when I found the next one....
#4, Corrosion at the end of the central spine. Water had collected & rusted in the bottom of the "V" over a relatively small area but it's a small area which connects the spine to the rear sections and looks to me as critical.
#5, minor stuff like cracking at body mounting points. I've no idea how this came about because the metal was sound but I ended up grinding/welding and then welding a support washer underneath.
None of the above were difficult to fix, just cut out to sound metal and weld in steel repair panels. Steel was cheap and making the panels easy but it did take a lot of time to cut/prepare/weld & grind back afterwards making sure not to introduce distortion. Would I do it now ? No, I'd just throw cash at a new chassis and take advantage of the improvements in both corrosion resistance, stiffness and suspension options that we've got these days.
I have no doubt Spyder/Banks would laugh at this sort of repair work but if you're paying labour rates it soon adds up if you end up replacing the front crossmember and a similar situation to mine at the rear.
Brian
