Rust-free rear
Once both Christmas tree and tinsel were consigned back to the attic, life returned to normal in the Marshall household, meaning I could dedicate time to non-vital classic car repairs. While my dependable Eighties Volvo coupé has provided my old vehicle ‘fix’ over the festive period, last year’s everyday Dolomite has been tucked away in my domestic garage, since its MoT expired late last October. Unbelievably, five years have elapsed since that car was treated to a light restoration in CM’s ‘Red Dolly, Yellow Dolly’ series. The work included replacing a bent rear panel after it was savaged by a wayward Ford Transit, but since the car was put into regular, all-year-round use, light surface rust has developed on the underside of the boot floor. Regular readers might recall that I have been intending to sort this corrosion out for over a year but, at last, I have succeeded.
Yet, I am always aware of ‘project creep’, when a small repair escalates into an epic task. While I was conscious that de-rusting the boot satisfactorily meant that the fuel tank would have to come out, I also took the opportunity to paint the inside surfaces of the floor in body colour, rather than leaving it as an ugly mix of bare sealant and primer. Once I’d hauled the tank from the boot, I stripped the boot floor of old underseal, using both a wire brush and flap disc but, thankfully, I found neither holes, nor severe corrosion.
Once the underside was returned to bare metal and all remnants of iron oxide were ground off with the flap disc, a rust converter solution was painted on, prior to an air-drying seam-sealer being brushed into the vulnerable panel joins. While I could have concluded the job with a coating of either a wax-based black underseal, or stone-chip, I wanted to restore the boot floor to its original body colour, without sacrificing corrosion resistance, because the car would continue to be used in all weathers.
As cellulose paint would have provided very little protection alone, I decided to spray three coats of Epoxy-Mastic 121 onto the underside, to act as a primer. After being thinned down slightly, this two-pack product, available from Rustbuster ( www.rust.co.uk) can be sprayed safely and effectively at home, providing a vapour mask is worn, of course, because it does not contain harmful isocyanates. My positive long-term experiences with this product were reinforced recently, when it won CM’s three-year external coating rust test. After the Epoxy-Mastic had dried, I concentrated my efforts within the boot. For optimum adhesion, I sprayed two coats of etch primer onto the pre-prepared metal and, once it had dried, both it and the Epoxy-Mastic were rubbed down with a Scotch Brite pad, so that the topcoat would be less prone to flaking off. Once the resulting dust was removed, the rear of the car was masked up again, prior to three coats of cellulose topcoat being sprayed on both sides of the boot floor. I avoided using the harder and more durable, isocyanate-containing two-pack paint, because of the health risks.
While I am pleased with the result, it is pointless refitting a tatty fuel tank into a freshly painted boot. Then again, it may be waste of time stripping and painting one fuel tank, when that of my Dolomite 1500 restoration project needs attention also. Therefore, the tank has been hauled out from that car as well and is sitting outside currently, while the petrol fumes evaporate, so I can work on them both in readiness for next time.
All remnants of iron oxide were ground off with a flap disc