My Cerbera project begins - anyone with any history?
Discussion
SimonSparrow said:
I bought my '97 4.2 just over 10 years ago with 82k miles on the clock. At this time, a typical Cerb had about 14k miles on it, so this was a leap of faith. . I too worried about high mileage, but learnt to relax. It's now got 160k miles on it with no rebuild (camchains replaced at 110k as the engine had to come out to fish out a bolt that had dropped in the sump).
Good effort! Great to hear. 
Decided to add a small update here. Generally speaking I will keep this thread running with progress updates and start smaller off threads for specific problems I find along the way. I think this will make future searches for people with similar problems more specific and helpful.
So, what have I been doing this week?
This:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Luckily for me roseytvr (Ian) has very kindly arranged to come and help out with the bolts before I resort to cutting. I am borrowing an air compressor and Ian has some impact wrenches he used when having the very same problem with these two bolts. Hopefully this new approach will work and my project can resume. Fingers crossed.
Last night I decided (as it was a nice evening) to spend a couple of hours working on the top wishbones I removed form my car. These are by far the worst corroded components I have removed. Most the components I have removed either have the powder coat still intact under layers of waxoil/grime or just surface rust. The top wishbones don't have any powder coat left and who ever was treating the chassis in the past never bothered to spray these.
My plan was to bin them and buy new as they looked pretty bad but at nearly £100 a piece (with VAT and bushes) I thought I may as well have a go at restoring them. I haven't finished yet with the final paint but here was the progress from last night:
This is how they started - pretty rusty. As I said, these are the only part with heavier rust than just surface. They have started to scab up and look pretty bad:
I started off trying to wire brush and scrape them but that was proving to be too labour intensive so I attached a small but very firm wire brush to my drill; that made quick work of the rust. I learned two things here:
1) I will need some better breathing protection. I had a simple cheap mask but was still coughing up and blowing rust out my nose for most the evening. This was outside on a small wishbone. When I do this to some of the chassis under the car in a garage I expect a mush worse environment.
2) Be careful of sparks. The wire brush I am using in the drill is very firm but I was surprised by how often sparks were sent flying. Although my hands are fine form decent gloves I have a number of bee sting marks on my arms from them - I need to wear long sleeves next time I do this.
Here is the wishbone after a sanding down to remove rust:
Next was the rust treatment - I went for RustBuster FE-123 rust converter:
And then after letting the rust converter do it's work overnight, here is how they look in the morning ready to paint:
The rust converter seems to do a good job and the surface is very hard. I wasn't happy with one part and decided to sand it back down and re-treat but the rust treated surface is much harder to sand than before so it must have done something.
Overall I was impressed by how well they have come up and I think I will paint them up and keep them now. I plan on painting them with some black epoxy mastic 121 next but will clean up the lower wishbones (powder coat is still intact so might just sand/key up for paint) and a few other parts first so I don't waste any paint.
The epoxy mastic 121 is suitable as a top coat but I don't know whether to leave them black or spray back to white.
Does anyone have any recommendations on a suitable white top coat paint for the chassis components?
So, what have I been doing this week?
This:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Luckily for me roseytvr (Ian) has very kindly arranged to come and help out with the bolts before I resort to cutting. I am borrowing an air compressor and Ian has some impact wrenches he used when having the very same problem with these two bolts. Hopefully this new approach will work and my project can resume. Fingers crossed.
Last night I decided (as it was a nice evening) to spend a couple of hours working on the top wishbones I removed form my car. These are by far the worst corroded components I have removed. Most the components I have removed either have the powder coat still intact under layers of waxoil/grime or just surface rust. The top wishbones don't have any powder coat left and who ever was treating the chassis in the past never bothered to spray these.
My plan was to bin them and buy new as they looked pretty bad but at nearly £100 a piece (with VAT and bushes) I thought I may as well have a go at restoring them. I haven't finished yet with the final paint but here was the progress from last night:
This is how they started - pretty rusty. As I said, these are the only part with heavier rust than just surface. They have started to scab up and look pretty bad:
I started off trying to wire brush and scrape them but that was proving to be too labour intensive so I attached a small but very firm wire brush to my drill; that made quick work of the rust. I learned two things here:
1) I will need some better breathing protection. I had a simple cheap mask but was still coughing up and blowing rust out my nose for most the evening. This was outside on a small wishbone. When I do this to some of the chassis under the car in a garage I expect a mush worse environment.
2) Be careful of sparks. The wire brush I am using in the drill is very firm but I was surprised by how often sparks were sent flying. Although my hands are fine form decent gloves I have a number of bee sting marks on my arms from them - I need to wear long sleeves next time I do this.
Here is the wishbone after a sanding down to remove rust:
Next was the rust treatment - I went for RustBuster FE-123 rust converter:
And then after letting the rust converter do it's work overnight, here is how they look in the morning ready to paint:
The rust converter seems to do a good job and the surface is very hard. I wasn't happy with one part and decided to sand it back down and re-treat but the rust treated surface is much harder to sand than before so it must have done something.
Overall I was impressed by how well they have come up and I think I will paint them up and keep them now. I plan on painting them with some black epoxy mastic 121 next but will clean up the lower wishbones (powder coat is still intact so might just sand/key up for paint) and a few other parts first so I don't waste any paint.
The epoxy mastic 121 is suitable as a top coat but I don't know whether to leave them black or spray back to white.
Does anyone have any recommendations on a suitable white top coat paint for the chassis components?
You would do better with a flapwheel or brush on an angle grinder for tackling that sort of rust. Check the integrity of those suspension arms very carefully if they are in that condition - you life depends on them!
I would send them for grit blasting and powder coating rather than painting.
I would send them for grit blasting and powder coating rather than painting.
Tanguero said:
You would do better with a flapwheel or brush on an angle grinder for tackling that sort of rust. Check the integrity of those suspension arms very carefully if they are in that condition - you life depends on them!
I was going to ask about testing components - there must be a (non destructive) method to test things like this and I would be very interested to find out if anyone has any advice here. The rust on these was bad but it was relativity quick to get back to the metal underneath - I decided to rust treat them rather than dip them but perhaps I should have dipped them to remove all traces of rust and then the metal could be measured/inspected easier. Jhonno said:
Considering for £100 they come with new bushes etc.. I'd have just bought shiny new ones I think.
Yes, that was my plan. But I think these are OK, they looked pretty bad to start off with and that is why they were going in the bin but as the diff bolts held me up and I had nothing better to do last night I decided to see how they come up. If you look in the third pic after sanding and before rust treatment they don't look too bad. I inspected them carefully all over and there are no cracks/fractures and all the welds are good with no holes/joint cracks. What I would like to do it get this car on the road and have a couple of months of fun while the summer is still here for low cost. The body off and full chassis refurb with new wishbones/sandblasted/zinc/powercoated would be nice but it would mean no driving this year. Who knows, I may be able to build a bigger garage with a lift in before the winter is here and that would be so much better to work in. It would probably mean any body off would take far less time too compared to the tight space I am currently working in.
Anyhow, they aren't back on the car yet and if I don't run into any unexpected costs getting this car back on the road I may well still replace them. I'm just keeping my powder dry at the moment waiting for the inevitable unexpected problems.
ridds said:
Check the vertical sections. Mine had less rust than those and were significantly compromised in this area. To the point that I didn't deem them safe to reuse.
I've replaced both the front and rear upper wishbones due to corrosion.
Do you mean the inner wall of the upright? I think I have an measuring old gauge (g-clamp style) in the shed somewhere. I will try and dig it out and check the thickness of the metal after sanding back. Does anyone know what thickness they started out at?I've replaced both the front and rear upper wishbones due to corrosion.
The front upper wishbones look like they have been replaced with new ones fairly recently and are fully intact/powder coated still.
Update time.
The diff bolt saga is over - a dremel was the required tool for removing rusted on top diff lock nuts with little/no access.
For anyone removing the diff (by yourself) be careful - it is quite heavy. Once the brackets are removed and the top bush bolt out I moved the diff forward, rotated it 90 degrees so one of the draveshaft flanges are pointing downwards then just lowered it out rear end first. I used a trolley jack to help lower it and this went well until it fell off the jack and rather than landing on the strategically positioned cushions it came down on the jack body unfortunately with my right hand underneath it. It is very heavy to lift with your left arm when you right is trapped under it and took me a while to get my hand out. I've only bruised a couple of fingers it could have been much worse.
Anyway, the car is now diff free:
The previous owner started this project to replace the top diff bush which has knocking a bit - I think it is past it's best:
I will let my hand heal up and then push on with the chassis strip and bush removal. I'm really pleased to have the diff removal job out the way and now I can push ahead with my project.
The diff bolt saga is over - a dremel was the required tool for removing rusted on top diff lock nuts with little/no access.
For anyone removing the diff (by yourself) be careful - it is quite heavy. Once the brackets are removed and the top bush bolt out I moved the diff forward, rotated it 90 degrees so one of the draveshaft flanges are pointing downwards then just lowered it out rear end first. I used a trolley jack to help lower it and this went well until it fell off the jack and rather than landing on the strategically positioned cushions it came down on the jack body unfortunately with my right hand underneath it. It is very heavy to lift with your left arm when you right is trapped under it and took me a while to get my hand out. I've only bruised a couple of fingers it could have been much worse.
Anyway, the car is now diff free:
The previous owner started this project to replace the top diff bush which has knocking a bit - I think it is past it's best:
I will let my hand heal up and then push on with the chassis strip and bush removal. I'm really pleased to have the diff removal job out the way and now I can push ahead with my project.
My hand feels better today after dropping the diff on it yesterday so I thought I would give the diff bushes a try. The first one on the shorter bracket came out relatively easy. I used a void bush puller and it went fairly well...the second didn't.
After the first one I was going to create a quick video for people removing diff bushes, I soon abandoned that idea. The bush on the longer diff bracket was really stuck. I tried pulling it like the first one and snapped the puller bolt (sorry Del - I will replace it). So I had to cut out the metal inner sleeve out the bush which isn't easy and use the second bolt Del included with the puller he lent me. That still wouldn't shift it so I decided to cut some notches into the bush to try and relieve the pressure and get the puller started. This did work and I managed to pull it out. It wasn't easy though and I do have a short video of the bush being pulled out. I may upload it tomorrow to show other people just the amount of force you should expect to use if using a void puller on these bushes.
Anyhow, here is tonight's progress:
The notch I accidentally cut should be OK hopefully. It is less than a third of the bracket material so I can't imagine it will cause any problems. I don't think the bushes move in the bracket as any movement will be in the inner sleeve but I will file the sides of the notch just in case they are sharp.
After the first one I was going to create a quick video for people removing diff bushes, I soon abandoned that idea. The bush on the longer diff bracket was really stuck. I tried pulling it like the first one and snapped the puller bolt (sorry Del - I will replace it). So I had to cut out the metal inner sleeve out the bush which isn't easy and use the second bolt Del included with the puller he lent me. That still wouldn't shift it so I decided to cut some notches into the bush to try and relieve the pressure and get the puller started. This did work and I managed to pull it out. It wasn't easy though and I do have a short video of the bush being pulled out. I may upload it tomorrow to show other people just the amount of force you should expect to use if using a void puller on these bushes.
Anyhow, here is tonight's progress:
The notch I accidentally cut should be OK hopefully. It is less than a third of the bracket material so I can't imagine it will cause any problems. I don't think the bushes move in the bracket as any movement will be in the inner sleeve but I will file the sides of the notch just in case they are sharp.
I've just uploaded the video of the second bush coming out. I stopped a couple of times to check the bolt hadn't snapped like the last one did but it was just the bush moving. It isn't the most exciting video but for anyone attempting bush removal it might be helpful to see how much force is required to get the thing moving.
I was going to add some commentary but it speaks for itself - "pull the breaker bar very hard".
Here it is:
Tight bush with a happy ending
I was going to add some commentary but it speaks for itself - "pull the breaker bar very hard".
Here it is:
Tight bush with a happy ending
TimJM said:
I've just uploaded the video of the second bush coming out. I stopped a couple of times to check the bolt hadn't snapped like the last one did but it was just the bush moving. It isn't the most exciting video but for anyone attempting bush removal it might be helpful to see how much force is required to get the thing moving.
I was going to add some commentary but it speaks for itself - "pull the breaker bar very hard".
Here it is:
Tight bush with a happy ending
unfortunate choice of name for the youtube clip I was going to add some commentary but it speaks for itself - "pull the breaker bar very hard".
Here it is:
Tight bush with a happy ending
coetzeeh said:
unfortunate choice of name for the youtube clip
Yes, it was originally called Tight bush but then somebody pointed out I may receive a few unintended hits so I thought I would go whole hog and turn it into a social experiment. I wonder how many hits I will receive that are non piston head users.
TimJM said:
The notch I accidentally cut should be OK hopefully. It is less than a third of the bracket material so I can't imagine it will cause any problems. I don't think the bushes move in the bracket as any movement will be in the inner sleeve but I will file the sides of the notch just in case they are sharp.
I would get the notch welded up. It's going to be a weak point and those brackets are under very considerable force when its being driven enthusiastically.Gassing Station | Cerbera | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff