My Z has been on stands in my back yard for the past two months whilst I attended to rust on the chassis sills. I took lots of pictures so thought I'd share.
I originally booked a week off work at the start of October to do this, which was a bit (i.e. severely) optimistic. In my defence though this was my first time doing car body work. It took me the whole week just to strip the car down as I didn't really know what I was doing. Big shout to @Mazza for reassuring me that I wasn't going mental during this stage
This was what we were dealing with. Photo of driver sill taken not long after I bought the car in Feb 2017. All four corners were similarly crusty:
I attacked it with various combinations of polycarbide discs on my angle grinder and drill until I got to clean metal. This is what the sill ends looked like afterwards:
Not great and lots of pretty engrained rot. I'd bought a big 5ltr bottle of Bilt Hamber Deox gel which I applied and covered with clingfilm as per the instructions. This is a picture of it doing its stuff:
The gel needs multiple applications if the steel is badly pitted as mine was and works better the longer you leave it. This is one of the reasons why the job took much longer than I expected. But I was shocked by how well the gel worked. It almost seemed like cheating. It does take ages though. There were a couple of tiny specs in the photo below which were removed with one more lot of the gel. Horrifically pitted but now back to clean bright steel and still solid underneath, which was the case for all four corners.
Decided to do the bottom parts of vertical surfaces as well, mainly because they weren't looking too clever. Before:
After:
The little triangular holes were stuffed with seam sealer which took ages to pick out and which were hiding rust. Slapped some gel on and left for a week and they came up bright steel which I was really stoked about. Similarly pleased with how the inside lips of the jack points came up as some of them were also pretty crusty:
The whole de-rusting process took about six weeks in total. Just endless cycles of angle grinding, applying and taping up gel, and then wire-brushing and cleaning it off whenever I could find the time. Worth it though as I honestly think I got rid of every bit of rust on the bottom of the sills. I'll return to where they join the floor pan when the weather improves (i.e. next year).
Brushed two coats of Lechler epoxy primer on all the bare metal. I specified black because I think it looks badass haha
Gratuitous jack point shot
:
Also rubbed down and epoxy'd all the chassis tabs that hold the outer panels.
Polyurethane seam sealer on all the metal edges and also to provide a bit of build:
Grey primer from a rattle can:
Colour coded top coat from a rattle can followed by two coats of lacquer:
New sill screws, wheel arch screws, speed clips and plastic clips all round. Massive thanks to @Brian H for being an absolute gent and sending me replacement chassis blind plugs when one of mine succumbed to my heat gun. Thanks Brian!
Blast with cavity and underbody wax before putting it all back together this weekend just gone:
I strongly suspect where the sills join the floor pan will be hiding some badness. But my motivation to continue this job rapidly decreased along with the temperature so I'll come back to it next year. My main aim was to sort the worst of the rust at the ends of the sills for now so they wouldn't get any worse over the coming winter. Not that I drive it when there's standing water, but still...
I got the car put back together yesterday and went for a little spin to celebrate. As I was taking it out my yard I looked at the clock and it was still on British Summer Time!
I originally booked a week off work at the start of October to do this, which was a bit (i.e. severely) optimistic. In my defence though this was my first time doing car body work. It took me the whole week just to strip the car down as I didn't really know what I was doing. Big shout to @Mazza for reassuring me that I wasn't going mental during this stage
This was what we were dealing with. Photo of driver sill taken not long after I bought the car in Feb 2017. All four corners were similarly crusty:
Not great and lots of pretty engrained rot. I'd bought a big 5ltr bottle of Bilt Hamber Deox gel which I applied and covered with clingfilm as per the instructions. This is a picture of it doing its stuff:
The gel needs multiple applications if the steel is badly pitted as mine was and works better the longer you leave it. This is one of the reasons why the job took much longer than I expected. But I was shocked by how well the gel worked. It almost seemed like cheating. It does take ages though. There were a couple of tiny specs in the photo below which were removed with one more lot of the gel. Horrifically pitted but now back to clean bright steel and still solid underneath, which was the case for all four corners.
Decided to do the bottom parts of vertical surfaces as well, mainly because they weren't looking too clever. Before:
After:
The little triangular holes were stuffed with seam sealer which took ages to pick out and which were hiding rust. Slapped some gel on and left for a week and they came up bright steel which I was really stoked about. Similarly pleased with how the inside lips of the jack points came up as some of them were also pretty crusty:
The whole de-rusting process took about six weeks in total. Just endless cycles of angle grinding, applying and taping up gel, and then wire-brushing and cleaning it off whenever I could find the time. Worth it though as I honestly think I got rid of every bit of rust on the bottom of the sills. I'll return to where they join the floor pan when the weather improves (i.e. next year).
Brushed two coats of Lechler epoxy primer on all the bare metal. I specified black because I think it looks badass haha
Gratuitous jack point shot
:Also rubbed down and epoxy'd all the chassis tabs that hold the outer panels.
Polyurethane seam sealer on all the metal edges and also to provide a bit of build:
Grey primer from a rattle can:
Colour coded top coat from a rattle can followed by two coats of lacquer:
New sill screws, wheel arch screws, speed clips and plastic clips all round. Massive thanks to @Brian H for being an absolute gent and sending me replacement chassis blind plugs when one of mine succumbed to my heat gun. Thanks Brian!
Blast with cavity and underbody wax before putting it all back together this weekend just gone:
I strongly suspect where the sills join the floor pan will be hiding some badness. But my motivation to continue this job rapidly decreased along with the temperature so I'll come back to it next year. My main aim was to sort the worst of the rust at the ends of the sills for now so they wouldn't get any worse over the coming winter. Not that I drive it when there's standing water, but still...
I got the car put back together yesterday and went for a little spin to celebrate. As I was taking it out my yard I looked at the clock and it was still on British Summer Time!
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