Rust repair and underbodu sealing

[Steve Webb]

Hi Eric,

I’m thinking the Fairmont would be an excellent candidate to have rust removed and new steel welded in to the places where the chassis is rotting (if there are any)…unsure if you have welding tools etc but if not fair enough.

If there isn’t any rust (I doubt) then could you show us how to underseal the bottom of it so that we know how to keep rust away from our chassis?

Just an idea 🙂

Topic

[Steve Webb]

…or even that Honda that I’ve just seen in the water leak vid 🙂

[EricTheCarGuy]

The Fairmont doesn’t have any rust worth being concerned about.

That said, body work is not really my area of expertise. I do however plan to do some work on my Vigor which does need some body repair. I don’t plan to restore it to like new condition, but I need to repair the holes in the trunk so that it doesn’t leak water into the trunk anymore.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[Steve Webb]

Awesome. Perhaps if you do the body work a vid? 🙂

As there’s no rust on the Fairmont would this be a good candidate for undersealing to maintain that?

Just thinking out loud 🙂

[EricTheCarGuy]

Well since I don’t plan to drive it in the winter, not really. In fact, I’m not a fan of underseal because as a mechanic, that stuff just gets in the way. It’s not likely I do anything with underseal at any time in the future.

[Steve Webb]

Fair enough mate 🙂

[Lorrin Barth]

[quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=95379]Well since I don’t plan to drive it in the winter, not really. In fact, I’m not a fan of underseal because as a mechanic, that stuff just gets in the way. It’s not likely I do anything with underseal at any time in the future.[/quote]

I had a couple of GM vehicles a ’78 and a ’79. Both these cars lost heater cores. The heater box bolted to the firewall and the bolt heads were on the engine side, some behind the engine (a big 400 cu. in. engine). To make matters a little more interesting, GM had slathered onto the firewall about half an inch of undercoating. To find the fasteners you had to probe this mess behind the engine.

BTW, the heater box sat in the passenger footwell. The first part removed when pulling the heater box was the A/C vent next to the driver’s side door.

[EricTheCarGuy]

[quote=”barneyb” post=95582][quote=”EricTheCarGuy” post=95379]Well since I don’t plan to drive it in the winter, not really. In fact, I’m not a fan of underseal because as a mechanic, that stuff just gets in the way. It’s not likely I do anything with underseal at any time in the future.[/quote]

I had a couple of GM vehicles a ’78 and a ’79. Both these cars lost heater cores. The heater box bolted to the firewall and the bolt heads were on the engine side, some behind the engine (a big 400 cu. in. engine). To make matters a little more interesting, GM had slathered onto the firewall about half an inch of undercoating. To find the fasteners you had to probe this mess behind the engine.

BTW, the heater box sat in the passenger footwell. The first part removed when pulling the heater box was the A/C vent next to the driver’s side door.[/quote]

Yea, everyone says that cars today are so much harder to work on today. I don’t think they’ve had experiences with older vehicles like that. If they had, they might look at it a little differently. That’s not to say there aren’t some pretty screwed up repairs today as well, just not the same as back then.

[Andrew]

Hi Eric,

If you’re not a fan of underseal then what would you do with a 10+ year-old car with some rust on the chassis? Just some zinc primer and repaint? Here in sunny Scotland the roads might have salt on them for 6 months of the year, so major rust is a part of life. Lots of people up here spray their cars underneath with waste oil once a year, and others use underseal. The problem is that road grit not only salts the chassis but also flings up little pieces of rock that shot blast any paintwork and undermine it. At least the underseal offers some resistance to this. Repairs may be made more difficult but you will be able to keep your car running past the 10-12 year mark. It’s such a shame to scrap an otherwise healthy car.

[EricTheCarGuy]

[quote=”LandRover” post=95885]Hi Eric,

If you’re not a fan of underseal then what would you do with a 10+ year-old car with some rust on the chassis? Just some zinc primer and repaint? Here in sunny Scotland the roads might have salt on them for 6 months of the year, so major rust is a part of life. Lots of people up here spray their cars underneath with waste oil once a year, and others use underseal. The problem is that road grit not only salts the chassis but also flings up little pieces of rock that shot blast any paintwork and undermine it. At least the underseal offers some resistance to this. Repairs may be made more difficult but you will be able to keep your car running past the 10-12 year mark. It’s such a shame to scrap an otherwise healthy car.[/quote]

I’m not saying don’t use underseal. I’m saying that as a technician, it can be a real pain to work around. I’ve personally lived in the ‘rust belt’ of western New York which also has a lot of salt on the roads for most of the year. The way we handled it was to have 2 vehicles. One for the winter months that was disposable, and one that was a ‘nice’ car that we drove during the warmer months.

[Author]

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