rigsby said:
Has anyone come up with a sensible alternative or modification to the Puma wheel arch liners? As we all know the standard ones seem to be made out of some sort of carpet and hold water and dirt like a sponge
The 'carpet' type serve a useful purpose and can be fixed without even taking the wheels off, if you want.
Spray them with the water based Thompsons Water Seal using a £1 hand garden sprayer and have a piece of cardboard around to avoid spraying yourself in the eyes when you spray upwards under the arch. Repeat a couple of times for each arch liner over a few days and the job is done.
Thompsons being water based will go, obviously, where water will also go and will form a water repellent, yet breathable, deep penetrating coating. You'll know when you've sprayed the liner enough because the spray will bounce off. Did all mine a couple of years back and they're still fine and water (and mud) bounces off , but I'll probably do them again this year anyway.
This stuff is usually used on brickwork, house walls, etc but someone at Fords should have figured this solution years ago. I think if it hadn't been for this fix then I'd would have removed my liners as well, as it just doesn't make sense to have water sodden bits of carpets in those areas.
rigsby said:
If people are going to the trouble and expense of replacing the arches, would it not also be sensible at the same time to look at removing/replacing/modifying what must be the biggest cause of them rotting in the first place?
Wrong culprit, I reckon. Otherwise the front arches which also have arch liners would also instantly rust....but they don't.
The real reason Puma rear arches rust so readily is twofold. Firstly, the design of the rear arch itself, which has one near vertical surface and one curved and form an extremely acute angle where they join. This isn't a problem really, but gave rise to the next part which is - spray shadow. * The wax type stuff that Fords sprayed into this area simply didn't reach the most vital part of the rear arch, which is where they join and for an inch or so up and it is this area that the rust is initiated by condensation inside the car. I've looked a three Pumas now and all had the same spray shadow fault in that area. It would have taken 30 seconds to angle that sprayer at 90* to get right into that 'crease', but for some reason it never happened. The front arches are more curved and the join angle less acute and don't seem to be any more prone to rusting than on any other car.
The various solutions for fixing/preventing/sorting the rear arches and rust in general are pretty straight-forward (although tedious) and I can run you though them sometime, if anyone is interested.
* 'spray shadow' is like the prehistoric cave paintings in France - put hand on wall, take mouthful of paint and spray the wall. Take hand away and the blank area on the wall where your hand was is the 'spray shadow' area.