A new paranoia - RUST!

Always wondered why Coupes seem to buck the trend for Italian cars and their propensity to succumb to the dreaded tinworm.

While giving the car a serious clean, I noticed a bit of a bubble at the front of the drivers side kick plate. Also, a small blister at the back edge.

Pulled the kick plate off and found it was much worse

rear end

corner of rear quarter panel

rear edge of rear quarter panel

front end of kick plate

rust ground away with wire brush

and treated with rust treatment

lots of paint flaked away - all treated

I've now touched up the front and rear extremities with a Sprint Blue touch-up stick, as they're visible when the kick plate is fitted. I'll probably Hammerite the big spots under the kick plate.

As for the bubbles on the bottom of the rear quarter panel, I'm going to have to investigate further - likely culprit is condensation on the inside of the panel collecting at the bottom.

yet another thing to worry about?

How many of you have very slight bubbling round the kick plates? Weirdly, the nearside is fine.

Good god..

I wish my 3 131 sports & integrale had that amount of rust.

I would have been well happy..

To be fair thats not fault of the build of the car. The quarter bubbles especially are from an old old poor paintjob, its bubbling under the paintwork, not inside out.

Same with the sill i imagine, correct me if im wrong but your car is an early one isnt it? If so the sill isnt sealed as originally. Its certainly not painted "right".

Thats just cause of an old repair for sure.


But yes, they are rusting away in some real bad places. They all seem to rust where it carnt be "repaired"

carlt - yes, you're right, its a 98 (import, if that makes any difference)

its had paint three times now - that last job was pretty good, so I can only assume that it wasn't taken to bare metal in that area and the previous respray was badly prepped)

Certainly the paint under the kickplate was thin and badly keyed to the steel - signs of a poor factory finish

If only!!!!!!!!

Yeah, the whole bottom of my coops passenger door has bubbled, I really need to get it sorted, only problem is that it's in an obvious place on the car so I'll be saving up to have it professionally done. might have some other parts of the car resprayed if the price is good, the bonnet is chipped to heck!

just correct me if I'm wrong though but the coupes ARE galvanized right? so for them to rust is has to be a bodged repair?

Got me parionid now......mine is currently sitting covered in salt spray

I would recommend this instead of hammerite , it is really good stuff

Blimey Nigel. Another thing to worry about then...

I might get John (at Euroeast) to whip the kickplates off then whilst its awaiting its final spraying - just to see if there is any rust and get him to repaint that area anyway just as a precaution.

Quite worrying about the rear quarter though - that needs nipping in the bud asap I would think.

James

That quater panel shouldnt be doing that less than six months from a respray! Something went wrong there, take it back I would say.

Would be worth checking the badges are watertight on the rear quarters and also the drain holes under the sill aren't gunked up.

I'm amazed at how much rust you've gathered under the kick plates Nigel! I thought my coupé would have been bad for rust as it spent most of it's days in the North-East of England so it should be an indication of what a coupé will look like in five years time in normal parts of the country



Yes and maybe.

Common misconception about galvanising that it stops rust forever. If the galvanised surface is punctured by stone chips for example then the metal will rust just like any other.

It may be a sign of a botched repair in the past and that is a common quote from car magazines, but often there is an underlying cause: mine had similar (but not as bad) bubbling in a small section of the rear quarter panel: that was caused by the badges leaking and the inside of the panel rusting. Removing the interior 3/4 panel revealed a shock, trust me
It's sorted now

BTW if you have a spare minute read the warranty provided for Rust Bullet for a good laugh: it's about as watertight as a collander

I have to agree with that,

Its suprising how much crud builts up under & around the kickplates.

A few months ago i took mine off gave them a good clean & polish

Diffrent metals react with each other, though it dose'nt look like that has caused it.

Nigel, while you're worrying... have a look at the sides of the boot floor

I have tried Hammerite hundreds of times and it is a strong paint but it doesn't stop rust.

Zinc paint is a lot better to apply direct to rust that you have wire brushed off but if it is concealed and you can put a wax on like Waxoyl or Dinitrol you might stop it.

I have tried a lot of rust converters. The test for them is apply to rusted area and allow to dry. Wire brush off to confirm there is still brown stuff underneath, throw in bin.

If there isn't any brown stuff let me know. I'd love to find one that works.

How dare you insult my wonder product !!







Have to cover their backs I suppose..........presumably to stop every Tom , Dick or Stan making a false claim


I'll let you know how good it is in a year, just bought a big tin last week , will be painting my yacht keels with it during the week, heard a lot of good reports about it though.
Stopped using hammeredshite a long time ago.....

The great thing is Kev, if the product fails, subject to all the conditions laid down by the manufacturer, they will refund you the purchase price

I'm sure the stuff I used on one of my boats was called Potassium Chromate paint (it was bright yellow in colour if that helps..... ) but no doubt it has been banned now as it probably caused a kipper to develop a nasty rash

Thats the stuff! My Dad has a 1965 Series II Landrover with a chassis that I stripped to the bare metal and painted with two coats of this stuff, followed by a sealent and then waxoil spraying all round - 10 years later and there's no sign of any rust!

It is such a vile bright yellow it must be very bad stuff!

If anyone knows where we can still buy it from I'd be very interested. Tried the local boat places but just get shrugging shoulders

I did hear or read somewhere (might have been on here...), that the Coupe takes a lot to rust, but once it starts they rust like crazy.

Although this looks like surface rusting, and not terminal.

I've got rust until my rear wheel arches. REalyl need to sort it out! Trouble is any pro job is going to be expensive as it's a job no-one wants to do.

Seen a few other P/R/S reg Coops with rust in the exact same place too.

Rust doesnt occur from a poor respray.
The rust was/is already there be it a previous stone chip or repair.

Galvanizing only slows the process down, look at motorway armco barriers, they're all galvanized and look shiny when new. Slow dull as they oxidise and finally the zinc wears through enough for the steel underneath to rust, they go brown, fall apart and need replacing.

911s were galvanized from the mid/late 70s onwards, but you'll be lucky to find an old Porker that's rust free

If anyone wants to know what happens when you ignore leaking side badges.........

oh dear!


It's sorted now, but it took a lot of effort because space to work in there is very limited!

I had a leaking side badge (strangely just the offside). When I replaced my rear speakers with 6x9's, after removing the side trims, there was visible water track marks coming from the pins for the badge. So I cleaned the whole area up and used sealant to stop any further water getting in.

It's a job I'd recommend everyone does, just in case. Plus you can hide the 6x9's easily, so that when you re-fit the side panels you wouldn't know. But the sound is a 100 times better.

Gulp…. Out of sight out of mind – UNTIL NOW…..

That’s my job for the weekend now. Check if leaking

How difficult is it to get to the inside to check the badges

As we are on the subject - this is one of my main prioites ATM. I have a nasty great patch inder the flap where the fuel filter sits, and i would imagine that it is kreeping under the under seal

Also the leading edge of my bonnet is well on its way, as are my wings, but my plan is to replace them both with Mariusz bits when I manage to get some where I can fully strip the Coup for a while. Hopefully if all goes to plan in my new garage :D. Would ideally like to buy a sand blasting attachment and crack at the under side with that.

Interestingly when I was muddling at the rear of the car a few weeks ago I thought hmm but minging but not too rusty . Then I gave the investagative scrape to reveal... which isn't so pretty. However rebuilding the rear axle is on my agenda at some stage so a quick lick of Hammerite can cure for now!



My other current mission is replacing nuts and bolts with stainless but I think they are slighly lower tensile strenght than normal nut n bolt steel. Try http://www.namrick.co.uk as they are pretty good if you want to do the same

Frost have quite a few rust renovation products..

...Has anybody waxoyled or dinytroled on here? Thought about it a few times but never actually got round to it

Oh yes!

/\ /\ /\ /\




How did it go?

Messy but satisfying, bit like my life in general

Most of it was simple. For access to the sills I started by taking the rear quarter panel off inside (to seal up those pesky badges) and there are access holes already in the tops of the sills. Take off the kick plates at the doors and again, easy access to the sills.

Doors were done when the trim panels were removed anyway.

There are some shocking little rust traps at the rear end, if you look underneath at the point where the inner wing joins the body...... OMG!!!

Variety of tools and implements used included a Dremmel, a spotblaster, wire brushes of different shapes and sizes and a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears

Oh, and don't get me started on how bad they suffer at the front end...........

Especially silver ones

....Sprint Blue

Planning on taking quite a bit of the fron end off & bead blast & powder coat.

Thanks 4 reply Stan, Deffinatly will look into waxoyl etc

Waxoyling is one of the first jobs on my list after the car comes back from the bodyshop.

I need to replace the rear quarter interior panels anyway so I can replace the speakers and rust hunt / wayoyl at the same time. I'll also fetch the kickptates off and do the sills and door bottoms.

I then intend to lift at the car up as high as I can from each side (one side at a time) and find/treat/waxoyl as much of the underside as possible.

I'm going to buy one of the 5litre drums of waxoyl and one of the spraying kits where you can attach a narrow pipe to the end to get into all the nooks.

*EDIT - I've just looked in the garage and I've still got 4 litres of waxoyl and a sprayer from the last car I did (Metro about 15 years ago!)

This car has got to last!

James

My old man used to waxoyl his Metro Turbo every year, I swear you could hear the stuff sloshing up and down the sills

Still, it worked as he still has a rust free Mk1 Metro Turbo, when did you last see one of these?

When it was rolling off the production line

Is he looking to sell it BTW

I disagree Bockers, they didn't even come off the production without being rusty thanks to BL's idiotic idea of storing the steel outside

I think K9 is hallucinating

Pure genious!

Oh yes........ I think I was maybe 5 or 6 years old and I can't remember the exact reason for the visit now, but my old man took me to one of the BL factories. He pointed out the steel lying in the stack yard and was told that it was waiting to be turned into panels. Even at that tender age I was able to say *but won't it rust in the rain?*

Obviously their stock controller was a 4yr old

Similar to the recycled 'black metal' Fiat, Alfa and Lancia used during the 1970's and 1980's made from crushed cans and all other throwaway steel objects!!
To do the sills and box sections etc, i would drill some holes and fill the cavities up. Then plug with a flat grommet. Waxoyl works best mixed with Supertrol and heated up to thin it.It also has a tendency to get everywhere, so cover everything up including yourself!!

Andy.

What is Supertrol Andy?

James

A normal Troll but with super strength and even longer hair like this but only bigger

Supertrol is a thinner clear rust protection that is water proof. Well known in the classic car world. It will mix with all waxes. Some mix it with Waxoyl to make a slightly thicker protector. But a lot have moved on to Dinitrol products which are proving good.Its best to use a rust comverter like Dinitrol PR15 which converts the ferrous rust back to ferrous steel. Then apply the protector coating.

Andy.

Interesting page on rust treatment here;

http://www.before-n-after.co.uk/intro/?gclid=CMu_6caFvo8CFQ4iQgodUWubYw

Also interesting info on rust converters if you click on the link on the page. I've always been very doubtful of rust "converters". You cant just convert iron oxide (rust) back to anything very easily - hence why a blast furnace is needed to extract iron from iron oxide!

James

Carl can you tell us where these bad places for rust are as it would be worth trying to prevent it from happenning.