What do you think of this rust ?

franksm

heh heh strange topic, and "nice" is not an acceptable answer

I looked around all rust areas on the new-to-me Stag. Most of it seems predictable enough (wheel arches and floors) but there's some in the boot too. You guys that have been though all of this, would you mind taking a look ?

Just need to know if you think it's major or not. The rust on the wheelarches looks like it's not all the way through so I'll grind off the worst of it before deciding if I need to get someone to weld new material in. The holes in the floors are thankfully very localised so the material that needs welded in will hopefully be pretty small.

http://mx5ireland.com/stag/hvv416n/rust/boot1.jpg shows a hole in the corner of the boot floor where it meets the rear arch. There's a similar hole on the other side, unfortunatley the petrol tank will need to be removed. The boot has a bit of wetness inside due to these holes but is otherwise fine. Anyone seen such holes before ?

http://mx5ireland.com/stag/hvv416n/rust/frontleftfloor3.jpg shows a hole in the corner of the front passenger floor. I think that area leads to the inside of the front wheel arch. Floor is otherwise sound.

http://mx5ireland.com/stag/hvv416n/rust/frontrightfloor2.jpg shows a typical kind of hole on the floor on the driver's side.

http://mx5ireland.com/stag/hvv416n/rust/frontrightfloor4.jpg shows a hole on the floor where the wheel arch would be. Same as on the passenger side.

Apart from these things, the car is completely untouched - original paint and chrome, etc. http://mx5ireland.com/stag/hvv416n/rust/ also has picsof my wheelarches and surface rust in the radiator area too. Nothing wild.

What do you's think ? Recommend anyone in Dublin/Meath/Louth for this sort of stuff ?

Cheers

Frank

corktina

franksm wrote:

heh heh strange topic, and "nice" is not an acceptable answer

I looked around all rust areas on the new-to-me Stag. Most of it seems predictable enough (wheel arches and floors) but there's some in the boot too. You guys that have been though all of this, would you mind taking a look ?

Just need to know if you think it's major or not. The rust on the wheelarches looks like it's not all the way through so I'll grind off the worst of it before deciding if I need to get someone to weld new material in. The holes in the floors are thankfully very localised so the material that needs welded in will hopefully be pretty small.

http://mx5ireland.com/stag/hvv416n/rust/boot1.jpg shows a hole in the corner of the boot floor where it meets the rear arch. There's a similar hole on the other side, unfortunatley the petrol tank will need to be removed. The boot has a bit of wetness inside due to these holes but is otherwise fine. Anyone seen such holes before ?

http://mx5ireland.com/stag/hvv416n/rust/frontleftfloor3.jpg shows a hole in the corner of the front passenger floor. I think that area leads to the inside of the front wheel arch. Floor is otherwise sound.

http://mx5ireland.com/stag/hvv416n/rust/frontrightfloor2.jpg shows a typical kind of hole on the floor on the driver's side.

http://mx5ireland.com/stag/hvv416n/rust/frontrightfloor4.jpg shows a hole on the floor where the wheel arch would be. Same as on the passenger side.

Apart from these things, the car is completely untouched - original paint and chrome, etc. http://mx5ireland.com/stag/hvv416n/rust/ also has picsof my wheelarches and surface rust in the radiator area too. Nothing wild.

What do you's think ? Recommend anyone in Dublin/Meath/Louth for this sort of stuff ?

Cheers

Frank

thats not rust..:D ...you should check out the nearest Cortina if you want to see rust......have you had a good look from underneath? i would say generally that it would be worse underneath than on top UNLESS it has been very soundly undersealed.....

franksm

corktina wrote:

thats not rust..:D ...you should check out the nearest Cortina if you want to see rust......have you had a good look from underneath? i would say generally that it would be worse underneath than on top UNLESS it has been very soundly undersealed.....

Yeah, quick look underneath - have yet to put it up on stilts, but it does look okay underneath. Lukily all the oil under there has "protected" it ;-) Not that it leaks, just looks oily as Triumphs tend to be.

Have it booked in for a coolant flush soon, so they're going to put it on on their lift and have a good look around the underside

junkyard

I've never seen a Stag without rust in all the years I've looked at them even when they were new. By the time you start to see rust its already too late.The only solution is to chop it out and weld in a new piece. Use an etch primer over the repair, then a two pack primer over that and then paint it . I would strongly recommend plenty of waxoyl every year after all that.

BrianD3

IMO you should investigate further and then post more pics. The rusty areas are very dirty and grimey, give them a good clean. Also wire brush and coarse sand around the holes and the extent of the rust will become much clearer. You will probably get a shock when you start sanding as big clumps of metal will probably start falling away, this is normal as rust is usually worse than it looks.

It looks like you will need to get some welding done however at the same time the car is a long way from being a "basket case". From what I know, welding up floors is not a bad job compared to say welding suspension mounts.

PaulK_CCI

franksm wrote:

http://mx5ireland.com/stag/hvv416n/rust/frontrightfloor4.jpg shows a hole on the floor where the wheel arch would be. Same as on the passenger side.

I would be particularly concerned about this one, showing the drivers side footwell, with rust in the corner. I can make out a hole above the area you marked, which has been patched up previously, showing a glimps of the inner sill !!!! with rust... To me it would seem that your sills are rusting from the inside out and that could be a major job. All the other areas do not seem to be majorly structural and would be easy to rectify, but rusty sills are never good news...:(

franksm

Cheers lads - I'll take a wire brush to it.

Paul - if you mean the hold in the vertical panel above the floor, ie. the sidewall, that hole is a standard hole as it's a box section No rust there.

In the photos, the rust colour all around those panels is actually carpet glue. The rust holes themselves are dark brown, so they must have been there a while.

PaulK_CCI

franksm wrote:

Cheers lads - I'll take a wire brush to it.

Paul - if you mean the hold in the vertical panel above the floor, ie. the sidewall, that hole is a standard hole as it's a box section No rust there.

if there's no rust, then that's grand, but note sills generally ARE box sections running from front to back under the door steps, alongside the footwells, and you can't really check them very well from the inside other then with specialist equipment, or whenever rust has come through and left a hole, so that's possible to peek in... in those cases, you would generally be too late.

Sometimes people mistake the curved sheet of metal running along the side of the car underneath the bottom of the doors as the actual sills, whereas in a lot of cases the actual boxsectioned sills run behind them... Clever crooks, just slam a nice new piece of metal under the doors and leave the actual sills festering away behind them...

franksm

muuuhahahaha....ha

I think I'll open op the rust to see the extent, bring the car to a couple of welder-dudes and get some prices for the work.

Thankfully all of these panels are available (and very cheap) and chassis parts too, but I don't think the disease has gone that far - it's only at the joins where I showed in the photos

feckidyparp

Looks like you got yerself some rust there. Yep... Rust.

Spit62500

Hi,

I've seen worse, especially on BL products. You won't really know the extent of the rot until you dig a bit deeper. If the rot was really bad in the sills, you'd know that the car was sagging from the door gaps - especially the difference between the gaps top and bottom where the door meets the B pillar (the hard top might add some rigidity so you could try taking that off first). If there's a difference in the ease with which a door closes when someone is sitting/not sitting in the car then there might be a bad case of sag...

Make sure that you buy replacement panels on the basis of quality and not just price. What you save on parts you'll pay in labour and even then it might not be right. That said, TD Fitchett bought a lot of the original tooling and they're among the cheapest for Triumph parts - they don't make it up on p&p either. I've also used James Paddock and found them good value and very helpful. See http://www.jamespaddock.co.uk/stag16.htm Some places might look nicer with replacement panels rather than patches and there might not be a great difference in price either.

Sorry, I can't recommend a welder - the only one that I've ever used used an arc welder to patch a floor and left a very obvious bead...

franksm

Cheers for the reassurance. Yep, I know JamesPaddock quite well - have spent a fortune with them over the past while (previous Stag).

I'm hoping this one does not need new panels per se, but just repairs to the localised spots. The car really is solid and fresh feeling. The hardtop doesn't make any discernable difference to the thing (then again the car does have the T-bar arrangement) and the panel gaps are all true. Doors close with a nicer clunk than my modern car.

Hope it's acceptable to do such localised repairs. My plan is to get those done, then the bubbling on the wheel arches. And if it looks cack, I'll put new panels on and get the car fully resprayed.

Any more meets coming up, I wonder ? Need to compare notes with those in the know

Frank

Spit62500

There's a Blessington Club run just after Christmas - the 27th I think. I've never managed to make it so far though I've hopes for this one so I'm not sure if the turnout is high or low so near Christmas. I'd imagine it'd be high once the Christms claustrophobia sets in...

triumphs

Frank,

I am club sec of the Triumph Classic Owners Club, http://www.triumphsireland.com, and we have a fair number of stag owners. Some of the cars are concours and some not but there is alot of advice there too. So get in touch 'triumphs@ireland.com' .

Ken
Club Sec.

triumphs

Spit6 2500,

I am club sec of the Triumph Classic Owners Club, http://www.triumphsireland.com, and we have a fair number of spits and gt6 owners. Some of the cars are concours and some not but there is alot of interest in these cars. We are having a run on the 2cnd of Jan, so get in touch 'triumphs@ireland.com' .

Ken
Club Sec.

franksm

Anyone have experience of Robertstown Motors in Ashbourne ?

They think the work I need is no problem at all (and from what I see, it's "standard" Stag work). I'm bringing it to them on Friday to put it on the the ramps for a proper look-see.

F

MercMad

Dont know them, where in Ashbourne are they ?

Kepp us posted !

adam01

franksm wrote:

Anyone have experience of Robertstown Motors in Ashbourne ?

They think the work I need is no problem at all (and from what I see, it's "standard" Stag work). I'm bringing it to them on Friday to put it on the the ramps for a proper look-see.

F

How did it go. on the welding ??!!

franksm

The work I need just needs patching as there are no huge areas needing replaced. For one of them, the petrol tank (in the boot) needs to come out. All of this will cost about €450 to fix - I'm going to just get the work undercoated when done because I want to go overboard with the protectorant before a top coat goes on.

I have some external work needing done too - wheel arches are bubbling (surface, not all the way through) and the lower front section under the bumper corner has completed rotted away - that'll need a repair section welded in. This second lot of work will have to wait a while, no idea how much it'll cost.

Robertstown motors: coming south into Ashbourne, turn left at Ashbourne hotel (traffic lights) and follow that road all the way (past the golf course) until you come to a yield sign. Go left there and into the big yard behind the house signposted as Robertstown Motors. Tony is the main man.

I found them very helpful, very knowledgable and they had some other classics plus some normal tintops in there.

Having said that, I'm getting a couple of other quotes as (a) Robertstown are v. busy and (b) Asbourne is a bit hard for me to get to from Clonsilla lift-wise

adam01

Do you think this is why there is a rust problem in this area, as there is a big Hole in the side. i'm sure that water finds away in getting in that area.as because that hole??!! i wonder. i,m going to weld both side's shut....ads

franksm

No, that upright section is all internal, there's nothing there to the outside...

The floor just seems to be a problem area for Stags