Inside out rust prevention Options

[tmessenger]

I spotted a 72 914 in the cars for sale forum that was at Brad Mayeur’s shop (914LTD) and gave Brad a call. This car's owner had sent it to Brad and then changed his mind about having worked performed and decided to sell it, this is where I stepped in. Brad and I talked about the condition of the car and I said I’d send a deposit but Brad would not hear it. Brad wanted to do a full inspection of the car (or as much as possible without tearing it apart) before he took a dime. There was no prompting from me for Brad to do this it’s just that Brad wanted to know I’d be happy with the deal upfront and down the road. This was a very pleasant transaction so a big shout out to Brad.

My hats off to the guys that do the rustorations I just have no desire to be one of them. I prefer to start with something mostly sold and work from there. Having Brad available to look the car over upfront was a real blessing.

There were only a couple of small areas that showed any signs of rust from the outside from Brads and my own investigation. One was the lower part of the jack receiver support metal on the driver’s side (I cut this out and welded a patch in) and a small area on the driver floor (surface rust only) where one of the plugs got knocked loose from below, another easy fix. I did find two small pin holes in the hell hold lower area so these were drilled out to 3/8” for rubber plugs I have in stock.

Having a good start, I wanted to have a look inside the longs and down in the hell hole where I drilled out those two pin holes. I have a cheap endoscope I bought on ebay that I can plug into my laptop. Removing the interior carpet from the longs exposed two covered openings into the longs. There’s just enough room to get the head of the endoscope in past the heater tube so you can look at the inside bottom of the longs.

Looking back, I could see the bottom of the longs where they turn up and both sides were showing only minor surface rust. Looking forward the same deal the front end of the longs is where the dust and dirt had collected and there was surface rust in these areas. Looking straight down into the long under the hell hole showed only surface rust below but also the remains for a mouse nest with lots of shredded cotton fluff. I wasn’t expecting this and have to decide if I want to cut out a hole large enough to get my shopvac hose down there to suck out the nest of just leave it?

Now for the fun part, this is a category 4 mess so you don’t want to wear your best clothes. Dig out that disco leisure suite that’s been sitting at the back of your closet since 1977. You can burn the suite when you're finished with this project and your children will thank you.

You’ll want to put some cardboard down under the longs and have some rags handy. I have my own concoction that I use to treat interior areas I want to rust protect: 1 part linseed oil to 1 part chainsaw bar oil, heat this up and melt in a part of a wax ring used for setting toilets. The amount of wax mixed in depends on how thick you want the oil mix to be, I put in about a 1” long piece per 1-1/2 cups of oil mix. This is for use in my oil pump can, if you want to brush it on add more wax to thicken to taste. For doing the longs you’ll need a pump can that can shoot the oil 4 or 5”. You can shoot this up into the drain vents at the bottom of the longs and also from the to ports on the inside, do this with the oil warm so it flows better. The idea here is the linseed oil will dry out and thicken with time plus when the wax cools it also thickens and will not displace.

Not all chainsaw bar oil is created equal, I like the stuff that has an additive that makes it sick to the chain and bar so it is not thrown off. Tractor Supply house brand bar oil is good and also Kinetix is another I know of. I also have a cheap 2” wide brush handy (to brush on the waxy oil like inside the bottom of doors) and a pan to heat up the mix in.

Shoot oil into any cavity that has access and keep your car solid and rust-free for many years to come. Note: if you have a race car that requires frequent welding having this condensed oil in the cavities is not a good idea.

Tim