Rust Proofing

[DavidBrough]

After much deliberation and sweet talking her indoors I've finally decided to take the plunge and rebuild my car in order to get the body rust proofed against the vagaries of the UK’s climate and the times we actually have any salt to put on them.

I've been looking at a process that involves chemical dipping to completely strip away all the paint and nasty bits and then some witchcraft to rust proof everything in another dipping process. Full details are at www.surfaceprocessing.co.uk and I was wondering if anyone had any knowledge or experience of this type of thing. In deciding to go this far I would like to make sure that I use the best available process and would ideally like to have the metal galvanised but don't really know what this entails or if it's possible outside a factory production environment.

Anyway, the strip down is almost complete and I'm about ready to take the shell to the body shop that will do the metal work and painting around the stripping & dipping and would welcome any thoughts on the process or possible alternative.

I still have a concern that large parts of the body will just dissolve when dipped as it eats away all rust, filler, lead and any other matter on the metal. However, now the shell is bare it does look to be in very good condition with little sign if rust underneath or inside the box sections I can now see into so hopefully that will not be an issue.

[mdsalemi]

Looks pretty interesting David.  I bet it isn't inexpensive but it looks like it will be quite worthwhile for long-term preservation of the steel.  My guess is you want to take the opportunity to make all the steel "right" after their dipping and before their e-coating.

I don't subscribe 100% to their philosophy on blasting however--there are methods of blasting now involving baking soda NaHCO3, which dissolves, and of course there is always dry ice blasting, that evaporates.  In the hands of professionals, blasting is fine for certain things.

What looks nice with the system you've discovered is that they are applying it to cars and thus have a skill set to do precisely what you need done.  Rather have them practice and become skilled on someone else's Stag than your Pagoda! 

[pj-tigger]

I've had them strip & then e-coat a W109 (300SEL 6.3)




The best thing is to get them strip the car then you do any repairs and then return it for a re-strip & then e-coat . You'll end up with a shell that looks like it's just come out of the factory.

Surface Processing have had a lot of experiencewith Pagodas - They had done over 20 when i was last up there , its not cheap but the results are great

P.S dont sent the ally panels to them - the process disolves aluminium !!

[Jonny B]

Impressive, do they provide any kind of guarantee? or at least have some kind of history of how this stuff performs.

[RickM]

Very nice!  I don't know of any similar service here in the US. Too bad.

[BiffaBeau]

After much deliberation and sweet talking her indoors I've finally decided to take the plunge and rebuild my car in order to get the body rust proofed against the vagaries of the UK’s climate and the times we actually have any salt to put on them.

I've been looking at a process that involves chemical dipping to completely strip away all the paint and nasty bits and then some witchcraft to rust proof everything in another dipping process. Full details are at www.surfaceprocessing.co.uk and I was wondering if anyone had any knowledge or experience of this type of thing. In deciding to go this far I would like to make sure that I use the best available process and would ideally like to have the metal galvanised but don't really know what this entails or if it's possible outside a factory production environment.

Anyway, the strip down is almost complete and I'm about ready to take the shell to the body shop that will do the metal work and painting around the stripping & dipping and would welcome any thoughts on the process or possible alternative.

I still have a concern that large parts of the body will just dissolve when dipped as it eats away all rust, filler, lead and any other matter on the metal. However, now the shell is bare it does look to be in very good condition with little sign if rust underneath or inside the box sections I can now see into so hopefully that will not be

Hi  did you go through with the galvonising process on your car?  Are you able to tell me, roughly what the cost was please?  Did you use 'SurfaceProcessing' in the end?

Thank you, it would be great to get an update.

M

[JamesL]

I THINK David's car ended up in Germany to get this done for some reason. I'm sure he'll update you

I have heard tell of sills etc being left with acid in (ie not getting rinsed out/dried/finisheded properly) causing longer term issues - but then I've also heard tell of sills (rockers) being left full of soda/sand or whatever blast media was used...

It does intuitively make so much sense given that it's a process not dis-similar to what happens to newly produced cars and we know how much better they are protected than ours were

[DavidBrough]

Hi BiffaBeau,

I ended up sending my car to Germany for the strip and e-coat as the UK plant closed just as my car was ready and after waiting 9 months for Surface Processing to come up with something else I got fed up so spent Euro 5,500 getting it shipped, stripped and rust proofed in Germany. I think Surface Processing now have a new plant and would be considerably cheaper. I didn't have any problems with fluids or other materials being left behind in the body cavaties but the shell did end up with a number of dents from the shipping and extra drain holes which had to be repaired. Hopefully, the treated shell will now last quite a while.