Chapter 6 : Rust
Well, there's not a lot to say, is there ?
You can see why the handling was a bit off, the engine mounts were flexing the chassis fork due to the corrosion from the wheel-arch side. The usual tale of "out of sight..."
All the other areas were fairly superficial and despite looking bad, probably weren't contributing that much to the main problem.
But, having taken the body off we might as well chop out anything that looks a bit thin and tidy up as much as we can.
The engine mounting areas were the first for treatment and the more I looked at it I convinced myself that it's a corrosion-fatigue mechanism rather than just plain corrosion.
Most corrosion was on a flat vertical panel adjacent to the mount plates, there's nothing to hold water in place and normally rust happens where water sits.
My theory was that as cornering loads go into the engine mounts it cracked the paint locally which allowed rusting to start. More flexing breaks up the rust film and fresh corrosion starts up
Is it right ? I don't know, but it seems reasonable because these were the only serious vertical panel corrosion areas and the engine mounts just happen to be there.
So it's out with the MiG welder, I always knew that was a good buy. This and the next page show some of the areas of corrosion and the repairs, none of which you'd class as rocket science.
Aside from the engine mounts there's nothing you wouldn't expect; where water can stand on horizontal sections, it rusts. Who'd have thought it ? ;-)
6 weeks of part-time work, and we're back with a solid frame.
