The £200 project

Hello!

Some of you may have read my other hello post with details about my first puma... if you haven't, I won't bore you too much with the details, but its a 1998 plate 1.7 in Jewel green, 2 owner from new, FFSH 65k car with all extras out the factory. For the costly sum of £200 as it was in need of a CV boot, an exhaust box and a couple of sill patches.

Now, as Puma's go, rot wise, mine wasn't too bad at all. However, if left, I know it will be (hopes and dreams aren't an effective rust inhibitor sadly). So far I've whipped my arch carpets out, front and rear, given them a good pressure wash out and allowed them to dry and also done the inside of both front and rear arches with waxoyl. Now I've decided to attack the extremely light surface rust pitting on my sills with a wire wheel and a drill....



As you can see, they weren't too bad at all really, with most of the old crap being cleaned up to this (shiny shiny)



I know it's been covered a hundred times on here but each report seems to contradict eachother even if slightly, so I'll ask anyway... what's the best thing for me to do with regard to keeping it clean and rot free? I've asked a friend who's completely rebuilt his mk1 golf from the ground up and so far my plan is:

Jenolite any left over pits that I can't get 100% clean (maybe 2/3 treatments)
Acid etch primer
Gravitex/similar stone chip protection
Grey primer to build up some layers
Top coat
Lacquer.
Also use some form of cavity wax in all box sections/inside the sills (is this possible?)

Any advice/suggestions welcome re that process, as this is a job i'd like to do once and once only! Also, any advice as to what to do with this? It's the only sign of rot on my rear arches, I'm not fussed about it being there and it's certainly not cause for me to replace the arch, however I'd like to stop it getting worse! Am I right in thinking that removing the rear trim inside and using some form of cavity wax/waxoyl on the seam inside will help slow/stop the process? If there's any rot there already I'll jenolite it first.



This isn't going to be a concourse motor, but it's been bloody well looked after over the years and good, clean early Puma's are becoming thin on the ground! My plans so far are to:
Clean up and protect any rot
Cambelt and W/P
Possibly lowering springs?
Fit my full Milltek system
Drive it!

Oh, also cleaned my carpet and seats with a wet vac too... seats were in a sorry state but they cleaned up well! (photo shows seat base cleaned, back left for comparison!)







Josh

Hi Josh
I use Jenolite regularly as well but only as a rot indicator. Anything that keeps coming up black after treatment either wants grinding down further or new metal letting in. Some people might disagree but once the rot starts there's no stopping it.
Etch primer is always the best on new/grinded metal so keep up the good work.
Barry

This link may help:
http://www.pumapeople.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=97645" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

JoshMcD95 said:

Hello!

Also, any advice as to what to do with this? It's the only sign of rot on my rear arches, I'm not fussed about it being there and it's certainly not cause for me to replace the arch, however I'd like to stop it getting worse! Am I right in thinking that removing the rear trim inside and using some form of cavity wax/waxoyl on the seam inside will help slow/stop the process?
Josh

Click to expand...

I am not familiar with the treatment materials you are proposing as I don't have them available in my market, but one thing I do know. That blister is a sign of the rust coming from beneath. That means it has rusted all the way through and no chemical product can repair it. You have to cut that section out and replace it with fresh metal. And once you cut it out, sadly, you will find out that the actual area that got affected is much larger than you thought/hoped.
Green pumas were very high on my 'I like' list and I would do everything to keep it in good shape :wink:

A little more progress,

The interior is more or less completely stripped out now with only a dashboard left in! Took the rear arch panels out to have a look and see what sort of state the inner sill/rear beam mounting area was like as I know they tend to rot there and sure as hell it has.....



This is passenger side. Got underneath the car after this and managed to make a small hole in the rear beam mounting area with a screwdriver due to rot so the next plans are to drop the tank and filler neck out, along with the rear beam and further inspect for any more rot and weld up accordingly. I've had the rear part of the sill welded, and a couple photos show this was in a similar way:



So i'm left with the issue.... how can I address rust on those inner parts? As i can't get any tool in there to grind it clean! My best ideas were to attack it with 40/60 grit paper and apply rust killer (I've just ordered Rustbusters FE-123, heard a lot of good things about it) and then give it a coat of underseal. Also ordered a 2 Pack Epoxy primer which is also apparently awesome stuff to use when wanting to get rid of rot, and its one that can also be painted over.

Also whipped the front wing off to find the inner wing in surprisingly rot free condition:


However the bottoms of my wings are rotten, but not falling apart yet... If I can't find a half decent pair of wings, I may try and treat the rot on these as best I can from both sides and keep them.

A couple more photos of the sills (you can just about see the plate I've had put in, this was once I'd started to flat the welds to try and blend the plate in with the sill better)






I'm picking up a hateful 1.0 Corsa B this month which will be my run about whilst the puma is being revived a bit, which should help me save on fuel/tax/insurance on my current 2.0 Focus!

Josh