Rust proofing an S2?

[Dickiet]

Finally found myself a rust free S2!
I would like to keep it that way, but is my only car so will be used all winter most of the rusty cars I saw had issues with the sill area.

Have bought some dinitrol cavity wax and hard wax.

I can't see a way of getting it inside the sills short of drilling holes in them is there a route in?
What other areas should I be trying to protect?

Cheers
Richard

 

[rav]

Open the doors up and there are plastic grills in the B posts that can be removed. Be careful as these have a habit of breaking.

This should open up the sills and you can use a long spray nozzle to get right in there.

If you have the plastic moldings attached to your sills, i would clean these and protect between the plastic and the sill itself too.

 

[Eldavo]

On my lux I could get the flexi tube quite far down into the sills from the vent hole in the door frame. Then there are drainage holes along the bottom of the sill and I stuck the tube in there to do the rest of the length. I think S2s have a plastic cover on the bottom of the sills so you may need to remove this to get at the drainage holes.

I used Dynax S50 so don't know what spraying attachments other cavity waxs come with.

 

[Diver944]

Spray plenty in there but make sure those drainage slots at the bottom of the sill don't get blocked. From memory you will need to take off the plastic sill trims to get to the drainage holes. You'll probably find the trims are full of mud anyway so its always a good time to clear it out whilst you're in there.

 

[zcacogp]

There are actually drain holes at the front and rear which you can fit a think spray pipe into. You need to look hard to find them, but they are there.

Lots of wax, put in on a warm sunny day, until it drips out of the drain holes, is a VERY good thing. And clean the drain holes out once you are done with a cocktail stick or similar - as Paul said.

It's worth taking the wheelarch liners out at the front and spraying the inner arches with some wax as well - particularly down near the bottoms. And it's also worth getting under the car and spraying the fuel lines around the rear axle.

And, all the other usual bits. Keep the car clean, keep a good layer of polish on the paintwork, wash off mud as soon as possible, keep the inner lips of the rear wheelarches clean ...


Oli.

 

[edh]

There is also access to the sills from inside the car - via bungs in the inner sill - peel back the carpet ahead of the seat on either side. I found that the easiest place to do the job.

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Finally found myself a rust free S2!

I can't see a way of getting it inside the sills short of drilling holes in them is there a route in?

Errrr, how do you know it's rust free if you haven't looked inside the sills? [&:]

The stoneguard paint on the outside covers corrosion up until it's fairly well set in, so you might, in fact should, see at least a bit of surface rust inside the sills through the great big vent in the door frame. You can get your hand in and take a picture of the full length of the inside of the sill before treating it as well.

 

[Neil Haughey]

To do it properly you need to take the front and rear bumpers of and spray all the way along the chassis rails front and rear + of course the cills and various other box sections in the rear of the car. Then also try and do the front strut towers and up and down any of the A,B,C post areas you can get a spray wand up and around. My brother kindly did all this on my S2 race car, as it is an acid dipped shell that was sprayed with a single coat primer and blow over top coat of colour it needed it to give me peace of mind. He used 3 and a half cans of dynax S50, this should stop dead any inside out corrosion happening for a very long time.

Note the car or rather the body shell was clean and dry when this was done as we did it as part of the build process. If anything this is the biggest problem you will face on a 20 yr old road car as the cills in particular can collect an amazing amount of dirt. It took me 3 hours to clean out the cills on my 968 earlier this year, I used a plastic brush then loads of degreaser and a brass brush to clean off any loose corrosion. I just couldn't believe the amount of dirty gunk that came out.

 

[Super_Marv]

ORIGINAL: sc0tty

then primed and resprayed the original paint colour on top.  Sorted! []

Big bucket of tipex? []

I washed out my sills before spraying in some cavity wax* There is a surprising amount of dirt in them towards the back. Must get flicked in from the tyres.

*I dried them out thorougly before spraying the wax, of course!

 

[Neil Haughey]

20 yrs worth of road spray for a start, its stunning where dirt manages to get. Anyone who has taken of the front wheel arch liners for example would have been through a similar shock.

 

[Alpine]

ORIGINAL: Neil Haughey

20 yrs worth of road spray for a start, its stunning where dirt manages to get. Anyone who has taken of the front wheel arch liners for example would have been through a similar shock.

you are right Neil, you have to at least remove the front wheel arch liners to do a proper job. Dead easy to do.

 

[Dickiet]

Had a good look in the sills at the weekend, and someone had got there first!
A loverly thick coat of brown wax in the sills no rust I could see under it so very pleased.
Next weekend will have a gander under the front arch liners.
Rich

 

[pauljmcnulty]

Had a good look in the sills at the weekend, and someone had got there first!
A loverly thick coat of brown wax in the sills no rust I could see under it so very pleased.
Next weekend will have a gander under the front arch liners.
Rich

That's what you want to find, excellent!

Would be worth checking that the drain holes are free, otherwise you can get moisture building up and that can't be a good thing. It's quite common for people to fill the sills and block the holes, a cable tie or a bit of thickish strimmer cable works well.