Spotting and dealing with rust on classic cars Oldclassiccar - visit the classic cars homepage (C) R. Jones 2008

Authors note: Please be aware that what follows is just my opinion based on my experiences in this subject. All matters relating to motoring law, or any other legal/official matters should be pursued with the relevant authorities. I cannot accept any liability for loss/damage/divorce/grey hair or any other misfortune based on any of the following advice, given as it is in good faith only. Ta.

1. Introduction. Rust is the principal killer of most normal (ie mild steel) bodied cars. Look at most cars stacked up in a scrapyard and they aren't usually there through being worn out mechanically, its usually through terminal tin worm. Even fairly modern cars suffer from structural corrosion, despite them supposedly having better protection than any cars previously. Wander around your favourite breakers yard, and for every hundred or so cars there may be 10-15 that are there through having been in a crash, a similar number which are tired mechanically, and the remainder there through neglect leading to levels of rusting that became uneconomical to repair. The tricky part with preventing serious rust corrosion is spotting it early enough to do something about it. Some corrosion is caused by flying stones or minor impact damage, and as such as easy to spot and hopefully address before it takes a real hold. Problems grow significantly when the rot has worked its way from within, often starting in box sections or double-skinned rust traps where panels join together. Rust can munch away at steel at an alarming rate ('rust never sleeps' is a mantra that was drilled into me many moons ago by a MIG wielding friend), and where it has worked its way to the surface, you'll often find a catalogue of horrors beneath, where the rot has been left unchecked. A few innocent bubbles therefore on the surface could herald a sea of rot below and out of sight. A couple of years back we owned what looked like a very well preserved example of mid 1980s Escort Ghia, ok not the type of car to keep you awake at night in anticipation of driving, but a presentable runabout nonetheless. Unusually there was no visible rot, so we were fairly confident that it'd last us a few years. With the MOT looming, I decided to jack it up and have a quick shufty underneath .. which was when my joy at owning a rot free Ford dissipated when I saw the rotten box sections around the back end of the floor area, and some ominous frilly bits of steel in the footwells. Hence our disposal of an outwardly presentable motor car for a miserly 30 quid, and this on a car that was only 15 years old and supposedly better built than cars of yesteryear. Part of the problem with many moderns is that the gauge of steel used is often quite thin, so once rust does get a hold, such as on our Escort, then it takes very little time for it to perforate the gleaming bodywork, whereas on an older classic car the metal used is often thicker and more resilient to the neverending onslaught of the grot. 2. Preventing rust. The best way to minimise the aggravation caused by rust is to buy a good clean example of a classic car in the first place, assuming that you are planning to buy as runner, as opposed to a rusty old wreck as a project car, and keep it in fine fettle. I can only speak for us poor souls here in the UK, saddled as we are with alarmingly damp weather most of the time (or so it feels!). A bone dry dehumidified garage is favourite when it comes to preserving your classic or vintage vehicle, but sadly most of us can only dream about such an option. A good compromise in many ways is a car port alongside the house, as this keeps the worst of the elements off your car, and importantly allows for good ventilation. In fact if your 1960s Austin Mini or Ford Cortina is your daily car, and its dripping wet following a shower of rain, it can be better off being parked in a well ventilated car port than locked away in a stuffy garage, as the through ventilation in the carport can help dry the car off far more effectively than parking your soaked classic in the garage. Worse still is covering the car with a plastic sheet, especially if the car is damp. All that happens is that moisture gets trapped under the sheet, and doesn't let the car breath - even so called breathable car covers are at best a compromise I've found. If you really want your classic to fall apart through corrosion, then park it on long grass with a plastic sheet strapped over it. The grass will stay damp for ages, and come the next warm day, the moisture will escape from the green stuff and settle on the underside of your car, being trapped there by the plastic sheet that allows for no ventilation or moisture release. If your car must live outside, one of the key areas to check is that the screen seals are operating effectively, as water leaking into the footwells can wreak havoc with floorpans, sills, door pillars and so on. Quite often tracking down where water is ingressing can be a tedious and frustrating business. Areas worth checking that may not spring to mind immediately include sunroof drain channels (where fitted), windscreen wiper spindle grommets (where the wiper spindles stick out through the bodywork, are the rubber seals still ok?), leaking heater (or air con) pipework under the dashboard, missing rubber grommets in the floorpan itself, poor welding repairs that are letting water in at the seams, roof mounted aerials that are not sealed properly, door seals (have they flattened and lost their compliance through old age?) and last but not least, rot in the bulkhead, which can often be very difficult to spot and even worse to repair properly. So as already mentioned, prevention is 1000% better than cure, and if at all possible try to buy the best example of classic car you can, one that isn't already riddled with the rot (unless you get a kick out of MIG welding). A major cause of rust is through the build up of mud in inaccessible areas underneath, such as around suspension pickup points and sills. Mud, once dampened, can stay that way for days following a rain shower, and harbours moisture very effectively. Wherever possible maintain the underside of your car in clean condition, underseal if you must, but keep it clean and free of any sludge buildup that will encourage and harbour damp. There are many waxy type anti rust solutions that can be sprayed or brushed onto the underside of your car, and equally into its many box sections. These can provide a very robust means of keeping damp at bay, although they do need repeat applications in areas such as wheelarches that get repeated blasting from road spray and grime. Waxoyl is probably one of the better known and available products, and one that I've used to good effect in the past. There are plenty of other products from companies such as Commer and Dinitrol, and any classic car magazine will have adverts of these rust busting solutions. Dampness therefore is certainly a pain, but there is an even greater threat to your classics gleaming coachwork, if you happen to live in parts of the UK and other selected countries, and that be salt! Local authorities launch droves of gritting vehicles at the merest hint of chilly weather, all aimed at ensuring that people who can't grasp driving in slippery icy conditions have half a chance of getting home in one piece, lowering as it does the freezing point of the snow & ice covered roads that it gets sprayed upon. This is all very well, but the slushy salt-laden cocktail that gets blasted around your cars structure is a highly corrosive mix, and accelerates the rusting process better than any other method. My first old Spitfire ran on very nicely painted steel wheels, and looked the part all summer and autumn, but within a week of the first appearance of salt on the roads, they started rusting, as did the chromework, despite me hosing off this nasty brine whenever I could. If you can, avoid taking your pride and joy out in such unpleasant conditions. If you rely on your classic for daily use, then ensure that the underside is kept as clean as possible (regular jet washes can help here) and either remove the rare chrome bits altogether, or liberally coat then with a hard wax polish and leave it on (ie don't polish it off) - ok it might look a bit dull, but a quick wipe over with white spirit in the new year will see your chromework back to its usual glistening self, as opposed to pock marked and corroded thanks to the aforementioned salt. Re-chroming is a very expensive business, and if your car has a large number of Mazak mouldings (usually badges and grille ornaments) then replacement may be the only option, assuming you can find replacements! Hence the importance of looking after what you have already got! If I ran a car on alloy or spoked wheels, I'd make sure that I had a slave set of normal steel wheels to drop on over winter, preserving the expensive wheels which can sit nice and snugly in the garage with a sheet over them til the spring. 3. Spotting rust! Many classics have specific areas of corrosion that are unique to their design, and as such couldn't be covered in a general article like this. However there are numerous areas which are areas to look for the dreaded rot on most steel bodied cars, glassfibre and alloy bodied cars being out of scope here. I'll try to cover off the most popular areas to check over when viewing a prospective purchase, a panel at a time. Front wings are probably the biggest single headache when it comes to rust and subsequent repair on classics. Unless you have deep pockets and a popular model (such as an MGB, Midget or Mini), replacement panels may take some hunting down. The most common area for bodged repairs is around the headlights, this being a classic dampness trap on many an old car, with mud getting trapped between headlamp bowl and the outer wing itself. Look for any hint of bubbling which will signify significant problems lurking below - rust is often x10 worse than that which is initially apparent, as I've know to my cost!! The front wing area immediately behind the roadwheels is another classic location for rust to take its hold, battered as it is by road dirt and spray, and many the classic that if you look carefully, has tinwork around here cunning disguised to look good with a swathe of filler. This may look presentable for a few months, but the rust WILL appear through the filler, no matter how thickly it was ladled on, and by that time the problem will be far worse than before. Wherever there are trim strips or other bodywork adornments, there are further opportunities for moisture to get trapped and munch its way through the metal. My A40 has suffered from all these problems, there is bubbling around the headlamps, bubbling along the wing where the stainless trims is attached, and behind the front wheels, accelerating rust into the sills behind. Front panels can suffer too, often comprising a number of reinforcement panels behind, allowing for plenty of rust trap possibilities, which are often hidden from sight by radiators, grills, bumpers and so on. Bonnets rarely suffer from terminal rot, as the worst panels for suffering are those along the lower edges of the bodywork, for obvious reasons, although its not unknown for certain models to suffer here if their particular design lends itself to trapping moisture. The frame around and below the windscreen, the lower part attaching to the top of the bulkhead, can suffer extensive corrosion if the screen seals leak, or if the air vent which can often be located below the screen has been allowed to fill up with rotten leaves, flies etc and attract damp over time. Rust bubbling in these key areas can be a pig to repair properly, entailing removal of the screen, much of the dashboard usually, and any amount of underbonnet componentry to gain sufficient access to make a repair. Minis are notorious for rotting in these areas for example, not least because they are often run as a cheap runaround by people on a budget, who are either unable or not prepared to invest in time consuming and expensive repair operations, more often that not slapping on a wedge of filler and hoping for the best. Moving further back, we have the A Post, which usually carries the door hinges and provides a key structural member between the top of the scuttle (bulkhead) and the floorpans and sills below. Any damage here can cause doors to not open & close correctly - look for paintwork damage and uneven panel gaps around the doors - and can be tricky to fix properly, rotting as they often do, from the bottom up. If there is serious A post rot, you can be sure that the nearby footwells are equally on their way out, and the sills (which often comprise a number of separate pressings to give them strength) rotting in sympathy. Sills and floorpans can take a real battering, and on some cars they are structural. The Triumph Spitfire is a classic example of a car which can suffer more than most if the sills are shot. Despite having a separate chassis, the Spit still relies on bodywork (sills) for structural strength, especially given thats its a convertible and doesn't have a roof to provide structural rigidity. Rare is the Spitfire that hasn't need sill and floorpan welding by now, given that the youngest is over 20 years old now, and the giveaway that all is not well is when the doors start to droop, or when the doors are lifted upon slightly, the whole A post moves in unison with the door (don't confuse movement here with worn door hinges however). Floorpans and sills are often candidates for hasty MOT repairs, where often the correct method of cutting out the rotten area before welding in new conveniently is overlooked, and new metal just gets tacked over the rot to temporarily disguise the real problems below. Therefore it is critical to assess the condition of the floorpan from both above and below, as its not unusual to find patches 3 or 4 deep in the worst affected areas. Doors themselves are often less of a headache, simply because usually they are easy to unbolt and replace. Rot is usually confirned to the lower edges of the door skin, probably through poor door-window sealing and blocked drain holes. If the doors have been left to rust, its very likely that the door frames will have suffered, making repair a lot more fiddly. With a popular car such as a Jaguar or a Ford, sourcing a better replacement door is often the easier route to take, although if your car is pre-war or particularly unusual, replacements may be scarce thus repair may be the only way out. Sill repair panels can often be found, fabricators usually being able to make up effective repair sections, although the quality can vary hugely and may take some fiddling to fit correctly. Fortunately the roof panel of a saloon car rarely gives trouble, although as with all things there are exceptions (have a look at this rusty Ford Model Y as a good example!!). Weird cases include the Morris Minor van, which can suffer serious rot around the roof gutters, and on the rare De Tomaso from the 1970s, which have been known to rot above the rear window. Moving back once again, the back arches are vulnerable on just about any monocoque (ie without a separate chassis) car. As with the front wings, these suffer at the hands of the elements, and often have double skinning which, if damp get trapped inbetween, can wreak havoc - just take a look at any older XJ Jaguar look carefully at the rear arches, chances are they've had new metal let in. Inspect them closeley therefore, and don't be surprised to find them cunningly stuffed with filler in an attempt to make them look ok. And while you're at it, stick your head (carefully) underneath and inspect the rear end of the sills and floorpans for grot, especially as suspension components often pick up in there areas, and add extra strain to those areas of panelwork. If the owner won't let you have a gentle prod at these areas with a screwdriver or key, then walk away. Rust can affect the rear window area as much as the front, old Jags from the 70s and 80s being especially prone for some reason. Open the bootlid and lift any carpets there are, and inspect for any corrosion in the far corners where the inner rear arches join the boot floor, and along all of the edges, using a torch if necessary. The bootlid itself can rot as much as anywhere else, but as with the doors and bonnet at least they are usually bolted on and therefore not too tricky to replace. If you are going to look at a classic for the first time, you can print off a one-page checklist of all the common areas that cars can rust - just visit the free stuff page to find out more. In 2005 I added a new article to the site, describing ways to remove nuts and bolts on cars that have rusted up tight - you can read that article on dealing with corroded nuts here.

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