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That's kinda what I thought. I'll still do some cleaning then, and where I'm confident there's no need to weld I'll underseal it. Then spray oil at least on the parts where the hole is.
Technical Corrosion Pointers Please
- Thread starter Col Max Pyatnitski
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Technical Corrosion Pointers Please
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OK, well this gets worse the more I look at it, it seems...
First, the bright-side: the passenger side sill really looks fine. Seams a bit crumpled here and there, but no bubbling, rust or anything. I painted on a coat of underseal+waxoyl all along that sill/seam, pushed the bristles in anywhere there looked like a gap might form, and I'll keep an eye on it.
The driver side, however....
Well, I did wire-brushing, then rotating wire brush with drill. The hole's much bigger than I thought at first, this shows it pretty well (hard to get the depth of field, I'm just using camera on phone):
The hole is pretty long, in total i'd say there's (at least) a good 6 inches of sill that is holed. I didn't go too aggressive at the cleaning due to proximity of bits of fuel system.
Working down along the sill, the browny bits opened up pretty uniformly. I've tried to get a couple of pics:
I then thought to look under carpets (as suggested). I did this on driver side at front just because it was pretty obvious to me how to take off trim. There's clearly rust down there too.
These pics are a little hard to understand maybe, but hopefully the first orients them and the others follow. Second and third are just at the bit where the sill and floor meet. I don't quite understand why this looks as bad as it does.
OK, so what I did:
How serious is this?
What's the actual mode of failure that's going on here?
The cracks/corrosion at the front: are they an imminent safety risk?
Will this ever get through NCT (MOT in Ireland)? (That said, it passed about 2 months ago at most without even an advisory)
First, the bright-side: the passenger side sill really looks fine. Seams a bit crumpled here and there, but no bubbling, rust or anything. I painted on a coat of underseal+waxoyl all along that sill/seam, pushed the bristles in anywhere there looked like a gap might form, and I'll keep an eye on it.
The driver side, however....
Well, I did wire-brushing, then rotating wire brush with drill. The hole's much bigger than I thought at first, this shows it pretty well (hard to get the depth of field, I'm just using camera on phone):
The hole is pretty long, in total i'd say there's (at least) a good 6 inches of sill that is holed. I didn't go too aggressive at the cleaning due to proximity of bits of fuel system.
Working down along the sill, the browny bits opened up pretty uniformly. I've tried to get a couple of pics:
I then thought to look under carpets (as suggested). I did this on driver side at front just because it was pretty obvious to me how to take off trim. There's clearly rust down there too.
These pics are a little hard to understand maybe, but hopefully the first orients them and the others follow. Second and third are just at the bit where the sill and floor meet. I don't quite understand why this looks as bad as it does.
OK, so what I did:
- I put back on the trim.
- I brushed/cleaned all of the driver side sill underneath (outside).
- I sprayed the whole thing with WD40, and tried to get it into the section too where the hole is
- I then applied lithium grease liberally over all the metal that has been exposed.
How serious is this?
What's the actual mode of failure that's going on here?
The cracks/corrosion at the front: are they an imminent safety risk?
Will this ever get through NCT (MOT in Ireland)? (That said, it passed about 2 months ago at most without even an advisory)
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Like I said, prepare to weep...
It's the design at those points in the sill there are lots of overlapping lips of metal, all spot welded together. When the underseal blows, there's lots of places that trap water. Between the flaps. Unfortunately, the start can be where they are jacked badly on the sills.
Inspector can only fail what he sees.
Like I said about the rubber, it hides things until they can get fairly bad.
Fixable though, cut out long slot and patch new bits in, underseal then you can keep your car going.
It's the design at those points in the sill there are lots of overlapping lips of metal, all spot welded together. When the underseal blows, there's lots of places that trap water. Between the flaps. Unfortunately, the start can be where they are jacked badly on the sills.
Inspector can only fail what he sees.
Like I said about the rubber, it hides things until they can get fairly bad.
Fixable though, cut out long slot and patch new bits in, underseal then you can keep your car going.
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Btw, unless you really need/love the car, this might be a reasonable point to part company, it would definitely fail mot now...chassis weakened.
On the other hand, it can be fixed.
On the other hand, it can be fixed.
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That's kind of what I was thinking too.
How does one sell a car at this point? Can it be offered for private sale? Best bit of it by far are the tyres
(put EUR320 of new rubber on it just over a year ago).I'll get a repair-quote on it anyway, and see where that leaves me.
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If you sell it disclose the full extent of the issue to the buyer, maybe with repair estimate. I don't think you'll get many offers....
Have you done the screwdriver yet on rear pans? And checked seat belt anchors?
Have you done the screwdriver yet on rear pans? And checked seat belt anchors?
