chris (09/17/82)
Some Ideas about Car Rust.
After hearing the discussions about car rust, I just
wanted to pass along some of my own ideas. The entire car
rust problem has not been, in my opinion, discussed and
examined completely as yet. Of course, we can all blame the
manufacturers or the road departments, but that isn't very
useful when ol'bessie is trying to save the environment and
bio-degrade herself before she's been paid for.
Car Washes:
I beleive the complaints about car washes using recy-
cled and therefore salty water are unfounded unless the car
being washed has never been properly prepared for winter.
That means a good coat of wax in the Fall. The car wash
complaint is a red herring because other factors play a far
more important role. For example, keeping a car in a heated
garage is far, far WORSE! Corrision is accelerated by heat.
A neighbour who drove a taxi all year didn't worry about the
salt in the car wash water; his car had to look clean to get
fares. His taxi (yes, he owned and operated it) was washed
at least four times a week, and had no visible rust. He
claimed that taxi transmissions and engines give up the
ghost after +150,000 - 200,000 miles, but the taxi bodies
themselves never get old enough to rust out. He used
automatic washers to save time, but given a choice would
always go to a self-serve to avoid brush damage and to do a
more thorough job.
His advice: keep you car clean!
The Under-Carriage
This is what really counts. A new car should be rust-
proofed (which costs $150-$250 but uses up about $25 of
rustproofing and very little labour). But a car that is
rustproofed must have its rustproofing MAINTAINED; old rust-
proofing cracks and holds moisture against the frame,
accelerating corrosion. There are a lot of ignorant people
out there because, for some reason, the rustproofing com-
panies don't seem to be educating us about the maintainance
involved.
Probably the best way to maintain rustproofing is to
have old motor oil or heavier oils sprayed or dabbed onto
the entire undercarriage of the car. Do this every fall and
spring, and your car will never rust (so they say). You
don't even need to get it rustproofed in the first place,
but if you did and do this as well, you're laughing. As for
undercoating, it's for suckers only => it deadens sound and
cracks quickly, causing water trapping.
Fixing Rust:
All body shops now use plastic fillers, so even if you
ask for "metal" you will get a metal plate with plastic to
fill in the edges. Tin is the best, but new cars are made
of such thin metal that putting on the molten tin with heat
would warp the body panels. Plastic is cheap and fast to
work. Unfortunately, unpainted pastic fillers act like
sponges, so if filler is placed over a crack and moisture
penetrates from behind, bye bye filler. Thats why cars that
get body work done (or paint jobs) really start going to
pieces in 2-3 years.
If you are doing the filling yourself, I have heard
that White Lightening (industrial filler) is the best (try a
body shop or automotive jobber, I only spent $6.25 for a
litre and it REALLY sticks!). A friend of mine who is a
bodyman tells me it may keep up to five years, but I
wouldn't count on it. He also tells me that for rust, com-
plete excision of the old rust or its removal by sandblast-
ing, sanding, or naval jelly must be done first, then a new
panel of mild steel should be brazed in, the whole thing
cleaned, and then primed. Otherwise, like dry rot, the rust
will spread through the entire panel.
When you do paint you will be upset to find that colours
are NOT guaranteed => the car manufacturers do not try to get
%100 matching on paint numbers anymore! My father-in-law is
a foreman at a Borg-Warner ABS plastics factory and has noti-
ced the downward trend in their colour matching requirements.
... Sorry this is so long, but it should be good to start
some discussions. We spend a lot of money on automobiles, and
I beleive we should get the most out of that money.
Chris Retterath ( ..utcsrgv!chris )
September 17, 1982