Dreaded rust

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Ride_on
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Location: Belfast, N. Ireland

Dreaded rust

Post by Ride_on » 26 Oct 2009 08:53 pm

I'm restoring my beloved 360 and looking for rust removal tips, not much left of my left sill.
IMG_2188r.JPG
IMG_2188r.JPG (86.8 KiB) Viewed 14424 times
Anyway what I want to know about is everyones experience rust removing. I am now looking at dipping stuff (some replacement sill bits that are a bit rusty and have just purchased some Hammerite dip, which seems amongst other products the modern safe thing to do. I've tried electrolysis, and not been greatly impressed, I have now decided its not much good because it doesn't really remove rust, it just converts it back to metal, but in a non-crystaline state so no strength. I hope to use the dip on the parts of the body that I'm leaving in and pump it over it, but cutting out as much as possible.
1980 345 DL_______1987 360 GLE (project car restored to GLT spec and B230FT'd)
1984 360 GLT______1987 360 GLT
1983 360 GLS______1989 360 GLE
1985 340 GL_______1986 340 1.4
1985 360 GLS______1995 940 SE 2.3 Turbo Estate (daily)
1987 340 GL 1.7

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volvodspec
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Re: Dreaded rust

Post by volvodspec » 26 Oct 2009 09:30 pm

i've never believed in chemicals to "treat" rust. those aren't a solution only a method of extending the life of the corroded steel

it will never be the proper steel again once it turns to rust, i'd say grind all the rusty bits out and redo it with brandnew quality steel, and directly after welding threat it with a good anti corrosion substance.

looking at the chassis beam, i think your floorpan and the chassis beams are in a worse shape than you might think looking at these pics, i'd remove the floormat and see if any corrosion is coming upwards aswell. and a hammer on the entire bottom to find other rusty bits..

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mrsoundcraft
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Re: Dreaded rust

Post by mrsoundcraft » 26 Oct 2009 11:33 pm


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SteveP
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Re: Dreaded rust

Post by SteveP » 27 Oct 2009 09:38 am

volvodspec wrote:looking at the chassis beam, i think your floorpan and the chassis beams are in a worse shape than you might think looking at these pics
I was looking at them thinking the same :shock: Never seen them rust like that before.
1989 - Volvo 360 GLT
1985 - Volvo 360 GLS
2008 - Volvo S60 SE Lux

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volvodspec
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Re: Dreaded rust

Post by volvodspec » 27 Oct 2009 09:44 am

i did actually, and on that car there was not much of the floor left. we nicknamed it the flinstone 300 :lol:

MCHUDD
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Re: Dreaded rust

Post by MCHUDD » 27 Oct 2009 04:14 pm

Hi Ride-on.
I know this may be no good to you,but are any off my panals any good to you that you could weld in.
Cheers Mark. sm4

Ride_on
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Re: Dreaded rust

Post by Ride_on » 27 Oct 2009 08:04 pm

I don't intend to treat the rust as such, but there are a few bits of recovered panels than I want to dip then weld on new material using the weak stuff as a pattern. Some of the inner sill I have has some surface rust.

To be honest alot of the car is in poor shape, I've done about half of it, the rest is this sill, the front inner wings and front valence and smaller patches. This is a complete car restoration project.

I have looked thoroughly around the underneath and the fuel tank/drive is coming out, I'll deal with the rear spring mounts then. The car was ok when I took it off the road and the underside had been touchedup as required. The sills rotted from sitting outside in the rain which shouldn't affect the underside apart from the outer edge which is f-ed and not much connecting the floor pan to the sill/door frame. The seat mount metal is providing some bracing currently!

Chassis beams seem solid mostly but are rusted through in a couple of points near front arches. I'll deal with it as I find it, every bubble is hacked out. Rather alot of rust coming down the A pillars, and the windscreen has been sealed with silicon, hope its not too bad, but I expect to a little welding there.

Mrsoundcraft - I want to preserve the original structure/engineering as much as possible. Those type of sills are tack over jobs, cosmetic only really. I have a new outer sill (without the pretend bottom parts), seems to be not Volvo EO as its a bit thicker/stiffer, have to see how well it will fit. I also have some length of recovered inner sill.

Mark, thanks I have most of the metal parts I need. Front RHS inner arch might be useful if its still solid, but I've ordered up some Hadrians standard arches.

My next big concern is removal of the inner sill by the front door. Not much of it left and I have a full decent part of recovered to replace with (after derusting and patching itself). I worry that removing it will weaken the passenger cell enough so it sags a little. Normally the door way lip is 3 ply at the bottom, I'll be going down to 1 (x0.8mm or so), and alot of that is missing near the floor. I'm hoping that by doing a doors worth at a time I'll minimise any distortion. Maybe I should wait and put the floor corner section in first (waiting for some standard angle sections).
1980 345 DL_______1987 360 GLE (project car restored to GLT spec and B230FT'd)
1984 360 GLT______1987 360 GLT
1983 360 GLS______1989 360 GLE
1985 340 GL_______1986 340 1.4
1985 360 GLS______1995 940 SE 2.3 Turbo Estate (daily)
1987 340 GL 1.7

Jos360
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Re: Dreaded rust

Post by Jos360 » 28 Oct 2009 01:16 am

I cut out the complete inner sill at my car and replaced it with a 1mm sheet metal plate, then i redrilled the original holes for rust protection afterwards. It takes a lot of work but then it is done correct in my opinion.

Image
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Jos360
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Re: Dreaded rust

Post by Jos360 » 28 Oct 2009 01:19 am

I have also redone the entire jacking point and a bit of floorplate and inside sill plate:

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Image (This is zinc primer)
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volvosneverdie
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Re: Dreaded rust

Post by volvosneverdie » 28 Oct 2009 10:14 am

^^^ thats some good work mate.
8)
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Speedy88
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Re: Dreaded rust

Post by Speedy88 » 28 Oct 2009 01:05 pm

Nicely done :D
'88 340 Williams (Sold)
'85 360 GLS - Drift project (Sold)
'77 Colt Sigma
'96 940 Drift project

Ride_on
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Re: Dreaded rust

Post by Ride_on » 28 Oct 2009 09:53 pm

Good to see someone else equally mad and dedicated to a 3 series :)
1980 345 DL_______1987 360 GLE (project car restored to GLT spec and B230FT'd)
1984 360 GLT______1987 360 GLT
1983 360 GLS______1989 360 GLE
1985 340 GL_______1986 340 1.4
1985 360 GLS______1995 940 SE 2.3 Turbo Estate (daily)
1987 340 GL 1.7

Jos360
Posts: 181
Joined: 14 Jun 2008 10:31 pm

Re: Dreaded rust

Post by Jos360 » 31 Oct 2009 02:12 am

Keep us posted on your work. Pics of every piece of work would be nice ;)

pettaw
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Re: Dreaded rust

Post by pettaw » 15 Nov 2009 05:23 pm

Luckily when the body shop replaced my outer sills 4 years ago, they didn't find much rust at all in the inside or castle sections. What they did do to shore up the jacking points has, with the wisdom of time, left a lot to be desired but that's another story. But with you car those pics look like They look like real nasty pics there. None of the chemical treatments work AFAIK. Is there any way you can just cut out the rusty parts without removing and replacing the entire castle sections?

Only thing about removing and replacing the inner sills completely, is you need to be careful because the castle section is the actual structural sill so if you intend to remove it then you need to work out some way of bracing the chassis otherwise your doors won't shut and your chassis will be distorted so the car will probably not track straight etc.

Ride_on
Posts: 2262
Joined: 26 May 2009 05:34 pm
Location: Belfast, N. Ireland

Re: Dreaded rust

Post by Ride_on » 16 Nov 2009 03:17 pm

I agree the middle bit is much thicker material than the rest and I was worried about taking the rest of the sill off before welding up the floor pan, so I have left the top bit on so the doorway so it is still 3 ply. Is it a 4 door and the B pillar is holding everything together.. just, it is quite rusty at the bottom but the B-pillar has extra reinforcement connecting the floor pan verticals to the structural sill. The floor pan will be welded first then probably some chassis support and remove the remaining forward part of the structural sill.

I've cut most of the rusted stuff out now and tried some of the Hammerite dip on a few bits, and it works very well, leaving some very porous looking metal that dissolves on contact with the welder, so it has al least helped me to identify more weak metal to cut out. I also got some Rust Bullet, seems hard to work with but has a 10 year guarantee, first modern serious rust treatment I have seen.

I've also got the jacking point with reinforcing plate of, that was fun. Its really not up to the job, no wonder most 300s warp the floor around there.

Been hacking at the inner wheel arch recently and found some nasty holes above the big square reinforcer around the suspension cone, just at the edge behind the lip, top of it is in a box section just under the ignition module, that's going to be a bugger to fix. Either I have to cut away some of the reinforcer and reweld from underneath..uck.. or cut away/hole the box section above the get the welder in.

Will have more pics up shortly
1980 345 DL_______1987 360 GLE (project car restored to GLT spec and B230FT'd)
1984 360 GLT______1987 360 GLT
1983 360 GLS______1989 360 GLE
1985 340 GL_______1986 340 1.4
1985 360 GLS______1995 940 SE 2.3 Turbo Estate (daily)
1987 340 GL 1.7

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