Editing Rust (section)

==Drain Rust Repair==

Now I'll attempt to fix it at home without welding. I don't have a welder, I'm unsure whether the surfaces could be prepared well enough to make a good weld, and I have zero experience. If I was a good welder, I probably would try that route. Anyway, have a poke around with a screwdriver or whatever and reveal as much of the steel as you can, while removing all of the old seam sealant. 

[[image:rust08.jpg]]

An angle grinder with a wire brush makes things a lot quicker. After you've got bare steel like this, you need to put something on it to keep it from rusting again, like zinc primer or fish oil. I can't say enough about fish oil, it's a miracle substance, it penetrates in everywhere and then dries to form a protective flexible self-healing gel sort of coating. I have used several sorts of rust convertors, and I'm not a big fan, they have little penetrating ability, they'll convert the surface layer, leaving rust fermenting underneath, so you have to go back to bare metal anyway, and then there's no rust to convert. Sometimes they do OK, but I personally wouldn't use them on something that was going to be hidden away and not see the light of day again for a few years. I like waxes, oils, and greases. However YMMV.

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While the front is off, there are a lot of other seams revealed that you can get fish oil into, to stop them rusting in future. Here I've undone the bolts on the door hinge, and levered the skin up a bit to get in underneath.

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The old angle grinder at work again, this time with a cutoff disc. What looked to be good steel above turned out to have rust extending into the seams, so it all got cut out until it was back to clean steel. All along the way I was injecting fish oil into seams and cracks, and painting bare steel with zinc primer. When you use the angle grinder, '''have a hose or spray bottle of water handy''' (Thanks for the tip Tensop.) I set the firewall lining on fire with the stream of sparks when I was cutting these sections out. I used interesting and colourful language. Luckily I had the garden hose next to me. Actually this is another reason why welding is a bit of a worry, there's a lot of flammable or meltable stuff in the area.

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I found several old computers on the side of the road, so I took their cases home for the steel. (Again thanks Tensop for the tip.) This steel is a similar thickness to the Skyline steel, it's a bit softer to cut and work, and it doesn't rust easily - I intentionally left offcuts outside to see how they weather. I made cardboard templates, and when satisfied with the size, transferred it to the case and cut them out.

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The rivets are stainless steel, which is a lot stronger than aluminium. The rivet tool needs to be tough to cope with these rivets, most cheap rivet tools aren't suitable. I bought several lengths of rivet to suit different depths, sometimes the rivet is holding two skins together, sometimes four. I coated the patches with fish oil just before they went on. I put chassis grease around the rivets, so the drill hole would stay rust free. Some might say that rivets are a bit agricultural, and they may be right, but I figure that as rivets hold a lot of aircraft and racecars together, they should be OK for my Skyline.

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The computer case was good too, because of the right angle bends which I needed for these sections. I worked my way along, hammering and riveting. When finished, I degreased the area, then applied two coats of fish oil, and waited for it to dry. It took over a week. This photo is before degreasing:

[[image:rust14.jpg]]

Finally I was able to apply the stone shield stuff. There are no stones under here, but it's a thick flexible textured surface, still wet in this photo:

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Some of the products used:

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After the stone shield had dried, it was time for three coats of Nissan Beacon Red, again still wet in this photo:

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It came out fairly reasonable, both sides:

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