Rusty Bum

[nick205 12 5 Cars]

Had my car down to SSP Engineering (R. Mountjoy) on Friday for a full beam rebuild. Excellent service and the car feels really rather sprightly again.

 

While it was up on the ramp I had a chance to get right underneath and check the rot. As you can see, it's got a pretty rusty bum!

 

Some of it is surface, but there are bits that will need replacing at some point. What was apparent was how the mud collects above the fuel tank. This has resulted in a couple of small holes above the tank, which will be a tank off job to get to. Also discovered that some clever bod has replaced the rear brake pipes and rather than route the pipes back over the tank they've chiseled out a section of the inner sill seam to run the new pipe through it. Same both sides as well.

 

[Anthony 1,002]

Doesn't look too bad at a glance to be honest.

 

Rust around the fuel tank is quite common, as - bizarrely - are various bodges to the rear brake pipes rather than just dropping the tank to do the job properly! Look under the rear seat bases towards the edge on both sides - usually the first place the tank area rusts to is underneath there where moisture gets under the seam.

 

Both your bumpstops are missing btw.

[nick205 12 5 Cars]

Bump stops missing and not a lot left to fit new ones to either, so still missing!

 

MoT's due Wednesday so fingers crossed they go easy on the old girl

[forbeslongden 32 13 Cars]

Doesn't look too bad that.... That being said, I wouldn't fancy too many more winters with that under there..

[mowflow 67]

Mine looked a lot like that before I stripped it. There were no really bad bits at the rear but a few small spots near the boot corner and under the seats/rear tank were near holes so I just decided to strip the lot, cut it out and replace. I dare say it would have passed MOT for years to come even I hadn't.

 

I guess people botch the brake lines as the tank is a bit of a bigger to drop. There's that bloody strap that attaches to the beam and lots of people manage to shear the 2 long bolts.

[mowflow 67]

Mine looked a lot like that before I stripped it. There were no really bad bits at the rear but a few small spots near the boot corner and under the seats/rear tank were near holes so I just decided to strip the lot, cut it out and replace. I dare say it would have passed MOT for years to come even I hadn't.

 

I guess people botch the brake lines as the tank is a bit of a bigger to drop. There's that bloody strap that attaches to the beam and lots of people manage to shear the 2 long bolts.

[nveeate 78]

I'm about to replace my rear beam and was also planning on treating the rear tub etc - not too bad, but some minor areas of rust/underseal coming away so I thought it would benefit from a ll being taken back down to clean metal and then treated/painted.

 

What's the best stuff to use in terms of a rust treating/inhibiting paint? I was wondering about this Epoxy Mastic, though would guess the grey would look like primer and the black might be a bit shiny:

 

http://www.rust.co.uk/products/category/28117/epoxy-mastic-rust-proofing-chassis-paint/

[Anthony 1,002]

I used Epoxy Mastic and then a couple of coats of Waxoyl underseal over the top.

 

Hard to compare to anything else objectionally, but certainly it seems to work well enough from what I can tell.

[welshpug 1,646]

Have you poked holes in it yet?

[Tom Fenton 1,536]

Looks pretty good to me. Any owner of a Ford would be overjoyed to find that underneath an untouched ~25yr old car.

[nick205 12 5 Cars]

Have you poked holes in it yet?

 

 

There are a few!

 

To the rear of the fuel tank there's a hamburger size patch of underseal that's slightly puffy if you know what I mean. Guaranteed this is holding a pile of rust together.

 

I'd like to get it through the MoT first and run it for the summer before I take it off the road and work on it over the winter. This gets the most fun out of it and ties up with tax and insurance running out as well. It also gives me a little more time to hone my fabrication and welding before cutting metal.

[Tamanga 6]

I've been crawling around under the back of mine and it's in a similar condition to yours. I've bought a rust converter call 'Vactan' it's similar to Kurust etc but has very good reviews in the VW scene. I've use it on exposed metal on my camper with no top coat and it's still showing no signs of rust after 2 months. Have a look on ebay for it.

 

I'll rub down and vactan the rust areas on mine then top coat with hammerite (mixed to a close match from green and silver cans) before a final coating with Dinitrol chassis wax.

[AlexRS2782 136 1 Cars]

Looks pretty good to me. Any owner of a Ford would be overjoyed to find that underneath an untouched ~25yr old car.

 

Very true. The rear end of the 205 pictured by Nick is in miles better condition compared to some 10 year old Mk1 Focus RS I've seen over the last couple of years

 

Shows how good the Pug is really - and how bad modern Ford's still are for rust.

[mowflow 67]

I took mine down to bare metal with various twist knot wire brushes. All the bad stuff was cut out, anything still solid but even slightly rusty got cleaned then treated with bilt Hamber deox C gel, then hydrate 80. It was all then cleaned and given 3 coats of Jotum 80 (might have that name a bit wrong. It's an epoxy mastic intended for marine applications) brushed on. Grey striped all seams, tiger sealed the bigger gaps then cleaned again and given 2 coats of Upol gravitex using a shutz gun. It's taken months and I never want to do it again.

 

During the cleaning

 

Primed

[nick205 12 5 Cars]

Mowflow - that's a nice job you've made of the underside!

[Alan_M 66 1 Cars]

Out of interest, how did you treat the inside of the box sections?

[mowflow 67]

Lots of people have done the same job with different products in the projects section. I read lots of those and spoke to a few people before deciding what to use.

 

For box sections I used Dinitrol shot in using the same undersell gun with a hose attachment. I did the rear cross member thing, chassis legs at the front, accessible parts of the sills and the bottom of the rear quarter panels and front doors.

 

With regards to the underside. The Gravitex can be top coated or left as is. ideally i'd like to topcoat mine just to try to seal it (colour is fine as it's white on white although not a close match). I don't have the gear for spraying 2k and I had a bit of a reaction with the gravitex and a freshly painted (not 2k) area on my front panel. I'll probably coat the whole of it with Dynax UC just to keep it easier to clean.