Ok, I know this has been mentioned many times but I feel the need to stress how important it is that people take note. After reading Nigels post about the rust he discovered on his old Sprinty i decided now its winter it would be a good time to strip the car back and start rust proofing.

I removed my interior and wanted to start by sealing up the backs of the pinin badges...

This is what I found:



Luckily it was just surface rust and hadn't gone through. I got rid of as much as i could (its an awkward area) and then started coating it in



(ive done about 3 coats)

I also sealed around the badges using anti fungal bathroom silicon sealant.



You can see a small hole in the bottom of the picture, there was a rubber blocker in there which i removed and then used Waxoyl with an extension probe to treat the whole box section.

While this is time consuming and you need 6 hours between coats of the Rust Beater its well worth it in my opinion.

What was really shocking is that while it was raining outside I could actually see drops of water coming in through the badge... god knows what its like when your washing the car (something we all do ALOT!)

Hope this helps those of you who aren't aware of this

Good work Mario, when I had my ICE install, I asked them to seal those badges up.

Think I'll have to take out my interior and do the rust proofing.
How long did it take to remove your interior?

Thanks for the post Mario, I have been putting that job off for a while whilst sorting the rest of the car out. I am dreading next weekend now! Although having said that, it would be a good time to upgrade the rear speakers too..... another job I have put off for a while.

Duncan - It took a good few hours! Make sure you have lots of bags for the screws and keep then stored by panel. The recaro seats are a bit of a pain to get out as the bolts at the front are hard to get to. If you need the car during the week i recommend starting on a sat morning and use Sunday to put it all back it.

As X19_Pilot says its a great opportunity to upgrade the speakers and also worth adding some extra soundproofing if you like

Too late for you Mario, but to anyone else finding corrosion here or anywhere else on their coop I cannot recommend evapo rust highly enough! Its enviro safe but works superbly, you can of course use another treatment, paint or whatever afterwards but to get shot of the rust, this stuff is king. Google it, UK product at a fine price, and it works! I'm in no way connected to them of course, I has the job of finding a good, safe rust treatment for work (aircraft servicing) and after testing all the usuals and some other very expensive alternatives, this stuff won hands down.

Gareth

I put sound deadening matting here, all up the inside of the arch though to the boot (after rust treating but it wasnt even close to the condition of yours!)
It made a massive difference to the quality of the sound and the general driving sound levels. If your going to go to the effort of taking this all apart, get some 6/9's in the back and sound deadening it all while your there.
Getting the rear seats out and all the rear panel's is only a job you want to have to do once

cheers Gareth i will check it out for the rest i have to tackle

It looks bad doesn't it sam... luckily its just surface

Remove your rear arch liners next week end.

I was planning to... the car wont be going anywhere for a few months... how easy is it to remove them?

Maybe not googling correctly. Can only find sellers in America

Just have spare plastic studs some will brake IIRC there are 3 behind the wheel one at the front and one to the back. It has some thing sticky at the top and comes out easier if you pull the rubber off.

Edit the weekend after that remove the front wheel arch liners.

I'll dig out the linky in work tomorrow.

Cheers Spee

i presume you only need to remove the rear seats and panels for this? BTW Mario is that LE41 or the Coupe in your sig.

Yep just the rear is fine, i had the front all stripped out anyway. Thats LE41 ...

The coupe in my sig is no more

Was your old one a plus or did you just buy the plus wheels/kit?

My old one (the one in my sig pic) was a 20v NA - I added the LE Kit and Plus Wheels. I now have a Speed Red LE, Probably time for a new sig pic