Failed Mot - Start Of The End?

[Grim.Badger 15]

***Moan Warning!***

 

Well my 205 failed it's MOT today, on fairly minor points like "Horn not loud enough" and "excessive play" blah blah blah.

The worrying point is on the advisory where last year I had "vehicle structure has slight corrosion" it now reads "Offside front floor corroded" and "Nearside front floor corroded." I knew this shell was fairly rusty when I got it, but my plan to "get to it sometime" has rather backfired and I now have rust EVERYWHERE! Although I doubt it helps that I live by the sea There's so much rust now that I wouldn't know where to start fixing it, especially as it's my only car.

 

All this means that I have the joy of getting it through the MOT (and replace a slipping clutch), just so that I have a car to go see other cars in so that I can put the poor thing out of it's misery, but do I have the drive to get another 205? I've had 3 205 GTIs now, the first and third were rusty and the second, which had a wonderful shell as I'd spent the time finding a good one, got written off by being hit in the back by a Volvo - the question on my mind now is whether I have the drive to find a decent 205 given that the current market seems to be even more random in price than when I got my current one

 

*Sigh*

 

Anyone in or been in a similar situation?

[welshpug 1,657]

I bet its only surface rust, dcc's dt was said to be rotten by one mot tester, none of the areas mentioned were any i remembered from swapping the engine a month before, and it passed at a different station the week after!

 

 

Seems some testers have a vendetta against old cars

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

Before descending into deep gloom and doom have you had a good look under yourself to see the extent of this "corrosion"? If you are lucky it may require nothing much more involved than a bloody good wire brush, ku rust, and then undersealing.

[chipstick 382 1 Cars]

As above, it may not be as serious as it sounds.

 

The lesson here is to act on advisories before they become a failure.

[Anulfo 22]

if it is only surface rust then easy enough to sort,if not try to find a decent welder,clutch.....i know this can be a bit of a bitch,some folks say engine out??......horn should be an easy fix!! I'm sure somebody on here will have the relevant part?

[eob 7]

Anyone who thinks the 205 is plagued by rust has never worked on MK1 Golfs. 205 is actually remarkably well undersealed and galvanised.

 

With that said mine has been welded in three places, but the difference is, because of the galvanising and the steel quality, you're not perpetually chasing rust. Those repairs were done five years ago. No repairs required since.

 

It's all about preventative maintenance, front bumper, lights, etc are coming out of my one this summer and she's getting wire brushed and coated in POR15, top couple of coats of alpine white, let it cure then drown it in clear waxoyl

[Grim.Badger 15]

I'm grim-er than usual, the "corrosion" seems to be where tyre fitters have been jacking the car up in the wrong place and have trashed the underseal and dented the metal, thankfully there doesn't seem to be any rust but I will give it a quick clean and photograph and once the car is MOT'd I'll get someone to fix it up. They have also trashed the locking wheel nut key so I've had to take out all of the locking wheel nuts whilst I still can, it was a hassle as the key kept slipping, but I managed it in the end

 

On the plus side, the horn woks fine it just needs the wiring refreshing

[eob 7]

Tyre titters have made such a mess of my cars that I now, religiously, remove the wheels myself and bring them in in another car. My Alfa GT in particular has two uniquely shaped sills.

[Grim.Badger 15]

I might have to get a spare pair of wheels so that I can do that in the future, thanks for the hint

 

As for the horn, this is why it wouldn't work (see below, the copper really is that black). There is 8.5 inches of corroded wire on the positive, and 4 inches on each end of the earth wire!

[eob 7]

...mine was exactly the same, the protective coating was like bakelite get pictures of the sills up if you can, just curious to see the damage. My Alfa has actually started to rust underneath from rubbishly placed trolley jack damage.

[Grim.Badger 15]

Here's the floor damage - could be a mix of tyre fitters and my axle stands doing the damage - first is the passenger side, second is driver side. You get a feel for the dent as well in the photo, which I wasn't expecting. I was wrong about the rust, but so far the metal is still solid so I have only myself to blame if I eventually get holes!

Edited January 6, 2013 by Grim.Badger

[Grim.Badger 15]

Also, here's the passenger inner wing. The driver side is nowhere near as bad, just a little rust staining. I will have to get everythign off and clean the wing back sometime later this year so that I can get it repaired properly.

[dcc 855]

thats nothing!

 

Get the bumper off

 

wire wheel it all down

 

weld what needs doing

 

primer

 

paint

 

job done!

 

(sounds so easy when put like that!)

[Grim.Badger 15]

You forgot the all important step of "learn to weld" plus "destroy bumper, mounting kit and part of the wing trying to remove the bumper"

 

Got the gearbox off now and the clutch is/was on it's last legs which is good news in a way as it means it's not a leaky crankshaft seal or similar. I did have problems with a rounded off starter motor bolt though, the awkward one behind the clutch fork lever, and after about 2 hours of frustrating work trying to turn it with mole grips, hammered on sockets and spanners, trying to turn it with a chisel etc I took the drastic desicion to split the starter motor open instead (which took all of 1 minute), results are below; I do have two spare starter motors so it's not the end of the world

 

 

[farmer 328 1 Cars]

sure once you get started it will be a breeze every job looks daunting till you get your hands dirty

[Tom Fenton 1,541]

The bits under the floor are easy to sort out, the inner wing is a bit more involved, easy enough to plonk a shoddy patch on it but to do a nice job quite a bit harder, mainly due to poor access.

[welshpug 1,657]

Mine is far worse on the inner wing and wasnt even mentioned !

[allye 530 3 Cars]

That's not bad to all! I always try to jack/axle stand off the sub frame or beam if I can.

[Grim.Badger 15]

Mine is far worse on the inner wing and wasnt even mentioned !

 

The wing wasn't mentioned by the tester, it's just my own personal concerns

 

I do need to work out how to get the jack and stands under the subframe at some pojnt, but it wouldn't do me much good for this job as I need too much access around the subframe to move the gearbox, driveshafts and wishbones about.

[Anulfo 22]

reminds me of an early nissan primera i had...a J-plate i think.Jacked it up to change a wheel and before i could get the wheel off there was an almighty crunch as the jack punched through the extremely rusty floor!!Good job it was on my drive at the time.Closer inspection pretty much the entire floor was rotten as a pear.You car looks repairable if you address these issues now.I'd always leave welding to a professional imho.

[Karl 15 1 Cars]

tbh i dont think you should be jacking on the floor

[Grim.Badger 15]

tbh i dont think you should be jacking on the floor

 

That's just plain bad p.s. will I have seen you on the A180?

 

The car passed it's re-test, CO down from 5.09% to 1.36% thanks to my spare AFM (and a new CTS, although the AFM on it's own cured all the obvious running problems so I suspect the old CTS, which is only about 4 years old, was still fine).

[Dendle89 1]

So your going to keep her on the road then ?

[Karl 15 1 Cars]

possibly i do use that road often what you normally driving ??

[Grim.Badger 15]

So your going to keep her on the road then ?

 

For now, but once this cold snap is over I need to properly empty the engine bay, give it a damn good wash and see what is rust and what is rust staining, and then work my way backwards along the car - once I have a better idea of the scale of the rust problem I can decide on the future of the car without a knee jerk reaction (which I'm much better at than calm, considered thoughts )

 

possibly i do use that road often what you normally driving ??

 

A tatty looking white 1.9 GTi, although it's normally a sort of grey colour I've seen a red GTi a couple of times recently that I hadn't seen before, around the Pyewipe roundabout, don't know if that's you or not.