[Clawz]

Last wednesday i paid the local ford dealer a visit, i had a free safety check voucher lying around, and wouldn't dare wasting that

She passed with ease (doh), but the mechanic pointed me to the area under the boot: lots of rust. I saw that somebody here somewhere (D170sam treated that too if i'm not mistaken), so i wasn't too surprised. I was planning on checking the entire underbody anyway, but this made it a bit more urgent.

So, i bought a pile of stuff, put her on axle-stands, and started working.


Left hand side


Right hand side

As you can see, plenty of rust indeed

I tried a dremel first, but the bits were worn in 2 minutes or so. Costing 3 quid a piece, that was getting way too expensive.
I ended up used a drilling machine on a stand, with a flexible axle (?) attached to it. The axle costs 30 euro's or so (that'll be 20 pounds), and is way better. Combine the size of a dremel with the power/durability of a regular drilling machine! A couple of rotating steel brushes at the end of that axle, and i brushed all the rust away to the bare, shiny metal.

I didn't snap pictures of the shiny metal; I doubt you would like pictures of yourself on an internet page all naked, so i'm not doing that to my sweet puma. (read: I forgot, silly me)

The Noverox (Similar like Hammerite's Kurust) is turning the tiny bits of rust still remaining into a nice black layer, so i'll shoot a couple of pictures of that tomorrow when the cat has her undies on again

To be continued!

This post has been edited by Clawz: 03 September 2006 - 05:50 PM

[Trix]

Interesting piece... Good explanation and i expect more and more of this are going to have to go through this
Would be good to see how it looks when finished.

[southpaw]

Nice one I'll go out and check mine tomorrow, hope its not too bad

[Clawz]

As promised, here are the pictures after applying 2 coats of Noverox. If the Noverox has discovered any more rust, it will have turned black and turned the rust into another iron substance (Chemistry: Iron = Fe, Rust = FeO2 / FeO3 (that's the orange one we know), Kurust/Noverox treated rust = FeO4) which shouldn't rust again.







It dried overnight, so after shooting the pictures i painted the entire area in black Hammerite.





That's it for now, the boot part is done. I was planning on treating it with tectyl too, so it would stand the stonechips better. The problem is when you smear that stuff on, you can't see any new rust forming underneath it.
The hammerite has to harden for atleast a week or 2 before i can smear it on anyway, so i've got plenty of time to think about it.


Poor cat with her bum up in the air, she'll be lowered tonight though

Next up are the jacking points. Below the car, near the edge of the door sill is that 'sharp' 2-sheets-of-metal welding strip. (You put the ford supplied jack across it, then jack the car up.) I noticed rust forming up there, so that will me my next underbody project, probably next weekend.

Feel free to put a 56k warning up in the subtitle, i'm a bit enthousiastic with pictures

[Dezza]

I was planning on treating it with tectyl too, so it would stand the stonechips better.

Why?

Do you carry the spare wheel in the cradle? Surely that would help with the stone chips.

This post has been edited by Dezza: 04 September 2006 - 03:48 PM

[Clawz]

Yip, i've got the sparewheel in the cradle (not mounted atm, paint hasn't dried enough yet, so i've thrown put the spare in the boot).

If you look at the 1st picture of the rust (left hand side one), you'll see that most of the rust has formed outside of the cradle. The circle behind the spare is indeed stonechip free. So the cradle doesn't protect the entire underbody.

Another thing that was going trough my mind: Ford, in all their wisdom, treated 90% of the underbody with tectyl. But not the space behind/around the spare. Did they do it for a reason, or did they do it to save a tiny bit of cash?

There are more pumapeople that have just treated it with hammerite though (Sam, Vas, Al), so it must be fairly stonechip resistant. Help?

This post has been edited by Clawz: 04 September 2006 - 05:57 PM

[LiamPurcell]

make sure no one nicks your rear wheels while its up on stands over night, lol

[littlefeat]

cool job

pity your not a bit closer to me
ide be fluttering my eyelashes at you ( well the few ive got left)
for an underbody treat like that

littlefeat x