Bought a rot box, how much to fix?

[Oilchange]

Body kits are a sure fire way of hiding, and perpetuating, rust. I had a side panel thing come loose on my 156 and the area directly behind it is rusting whereas the part open to air is clean. Needed welding to pass the MOT.

Good luck getting it sorted, I expect it won't be too dear to weld up. Make sure they coat the surface in some goop after though, mine wasn't!

[Blue Oval84]

Thanks for all of the comments guys, I'll keep you posted with an outcome!

[FLGirl]

I can't help with the rust but would love to know details of the BMW specialist you're using please!

[PAUL500]

Just put my recent purchase 53 plate Mazda 6 through an mot knowing it needed welding to the sills and floor. I am now £400 poorer as a result! That was 2 rear corners chopped out and new panels made up, 2 patches on the rear floor and the entire length of one sill cut out and re plated. I was going to have a go myself but it was beyond my limited experience with a mig, needed to be on a ramp to access really.

I thought the price was ott but I had I left it to the last minute as needed the car so had to go ahead Mon morning. It took the welder a day, had the car back with its ticket Tuesday, so he had a merry christmas off me! didnt fail on anything else though so hopefully its now sorted for a few years.

[TooMany2cvs]

PAUL500 said:

Just put my recent purchase 53 plate Mazda 6 through an mot knowing it needed welding to the sills and floor. I am now £400 poorer as a result! That was 2 rear corners chopped out and new panels made up, 2 patches on the rear floor and the entire length of one sill cut out and re plated

It took the welder a day... hopefully its now sorted for a few years.

We're talking about two different things here, I think.

Sounds like the OP wants the work doing properly - permanently - not a quick lash-up for the next MOT or two, which is all a day will give you for that amount of work.

Have a look at Kitchski's thread about the rot and welding on his BX for the kind of thing we'll be talking about once the Mondeo gets stripped down.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

If this car's being viewed as a rare long-term keeper, that's the kind of work that needs to be done. If it's being viewed as short-term fun, either do what's needed for the next MOT or two, or just break it now and keep the bits for a better shell. If you can find one.

[Blue Oval84]

TooMany2cvs said:

Have a look at Kitchski's thread about the rot and welding on his BX for the kind of thing we'll be talking about once the Mondeo gets stripped down.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

If this car's being viewed as a rare long-term keeper, that's the kind of work that needs to be done. If it's being viewed as short-term fun, either do what's needed for the next MOT or two, or just break it now and keep the bits for a better shell. If you can find one.

I wish I hadn't looked at that, I feel ill now lol.

On the brighter side, my car doesn't appear to have rot as bad as that, I guess we'll know more once the poking around commences!

[BrabusMog]

Any pictures of the whole car, OP? Hope you get it sorted.

[kwk]

You haven't seen rust without looking at certain Mercs. I bought one w210, 2 owners, over 100k but with full history, very high spec and no advisories on mot's for years.
I started to strip the bodykit off and it is as rotten as a pear except for the two front wings which are new.
I have now bought a second, low mileage w210 which is very solid but lower spec. I have stripped all the higher spec parts and the front wings from the other one and scrapped the rest. I will actually be giving it to my local Merc specialist who will discount a few services for me.
As the cars are so cheap now, it was far better for me to buy another, better car, than to spend a fortune on welding.

Edited by kwk on Saturday 19th December 20:01

[Kitchski]

Blue Oval84 said:

TooMany2cvs said:

Have a look at Kitchski's thread about the rot and welding on his BX for the kind of thing we'll be talking about once the Mondeo gets stripped down.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

If this car's being viewed as a rare long-term keeper, that's the kind of work that needs to be done. If it's being viewed as short-term fun, either do what's needed for the next MOT or two, or just break it now and keep the bits for a better shell. If you can find one.

I wish I hadn't looked at that, I feel ill now lol.

On the brighter side, my car doesn't appear to have rot as bad as that, I guess we'll know more once the poking around commences!

On one hand I would say don't compare the Mondeo to our BX, as our BX is 30 years old and has 200k under its belt. On the flipside, I know Fords love to rust, so the Mondy might have caught the BX up already! That BX is particularly bad, though.

What with the jobs I'm doing on the BX and others at work, I'm pretty well placed to give you at least some advice.

First point - do you see yourself keeping the car long term? You've already said you are, but we get customers at work all the time who pay out to have a TVR chassis refurbed, or whatever, and state they'll never sell the car/will be buried in it etc. A year later, it's in the classifieds! So really, are you going to keep it for 10+ years? If you're not sure you will, then you seriously should consider finding a better car. I'm not saying you absolutely should find one, but you should give it serious thought. Chances are there isn't an ST200 in the land without a bit of rot buried under some hastily-applied factory sealant, so improving your situation might not be easy.
On the other hand, if you've got one with the miles, provenance, and good mechanical/internal condition, then it's a decent base to plough some money into. You'll never make money on it if you do shell out having all the rot dug out, but you'll make more than most if it's sorted underneath (and it's all documented). All Fords go up in value eventually. If you do see yourself keeping it, and you sound like you already do want to plough on with it, then great. But if you don't see it (genuinely) as a 'forever' thing, then seriously consider your options before you spunk away thousands.

Second point - can you do any of it yourself? The problem you've got is that the grade of repair carried out can vary wildly. Some people just see a dollop of P40, some Hammerite or stonechip later and you're sorted, as a bodge. And it is, true. However, you could also count plating over a hole as a less than satisfactory repair. You need someone who's going to cut out the rot, make flush-fitting panels to fill in the gaps, seem it all up and then coat it thoroughly. They'll also need to get inside and rust-protect it thoroughly (the hardest bit, IMO) from behind, otherwise all that freshly welded metal will be lovely and protected from outside, and bare and rusting fast on the inside. One of the areas marked in you pictures appears like this to me.
Reason for asking if you can do any yourself, is cost. Most bodyshops will not afford you the level of protection you'll want, and those who do will need to charge you thousands. And if you tackle it any other way (i.e MoT-grade patches, some paint and then commence ignorance) you're only cheating yourself in the long run as it will come back to bite you in the arse if you actually want to use the car properly (driving in all weathers, covering miles, not being afraid of puddles etc - it's a car, it's meant to be driven).
Using my BX job as an example, I'm going round the whole car with flap discs, hunting for rust. There are areas I could see it a mile off, but there are also areas where it looked fine until I started grinding. Luckily I found them and now they're not going to rear their ugly heads for many years. I want to make it a zero-aggro car for my Dad as he's done a lot to help me over the years, and I want to give something back. Originally it was going to be a cheap respray (around £1500), sort out any patches that need welding, change the timing belt and clutch and send it on its way. That was 3 years ago, and I know if I'd done that and he had it back now, there would be more issues afoot. I reckon up to the point I'm at now on the engine bay/front end, I'm probably down to 85-90% rust-free, or something like that. Still got the sills and rear end to sort yet!

The reason I harp on about having a thorough job, is stuff like this:



That's the base of a front chassis rail on a BX, where the front subframe attaches. You can see I've peeled away some underseal there, and you can see where the underseal used to sit as the newly exposed rust is darker in shade than the rest.
Well actually, the lighter surface rust is dry, and the darker stuff is damp. The car hasn't seen a wet road for at least 5 years, and it's lived indoors for the last 8-9 years. So there are areas of metal that are happily rusting away, out of sight! If I hadn't caught that, I'd be having a nightmare in a couple of years, and that's the point - you need someone who's going to dig out anything even remotely suspicious, and attend to it all in detail. And that's going to cost you a small fortune (if the BX was a paying job, it'd be in five figures by now, and our hourly rates are cheap). But then, if you don't pay for the time and attention to be spent, you'll end up with a car you spend a few quid on in 2016 needing more welding and work in 2018-2019.
Hence my point - if you can do it yourself, you'll save a packet, be able to take your time and go into detail, and know you've done a full job.

Basically it's the old saying - do it properly, or not at all. Best of luck, they're nice cars

[Kitchski]

Oh, and I've got a spare OTTO 1/18 in stock if you're looking for one. I've got one in the cabinet at home - thoroughly awesome, even if it's a saloon and we had a hatch

[Blue Oval84]

Eeek! Five figures worth of work? Sweet baby jesus!

I could be tempted to cut and run and try find another one, but in all honesty I'm not sure there will be many out there that are actually in better condition, they are all of the same age now. Everything else about this one checks out apart from this rot underneath.

I really do see myself keeping it for a long time, I sold a MK2 before and bitterly regretted it later, this one is the pinnacle of the MK2 range so I really doubt I'll part with it in a hurry.

Unfortunately however, working on it myself is a total no no at this point in my life, I have absolutely nowhere to do it, I live in a block of flats.

I will however make sure to get detailed information from the bodyshop about what it is that they intend to do with it. I've noticed that you can get new sills for about £20 each, but I think that's just the outer skin, clearly this one needs some work beyond that. I definitely want something better than just welding a piece of metal over the top...

[steveo3002]

you say you have no where to do it , im much the same but when my car needed work i asked around and spoke to mates etc and luckily someone was kind enough to let me work on a corner of their yard and i did it myself to a good tidy standard after practice and research

would it be worth you looking into , maybe a pal or family member would let you work on thier drive or back yard ? a good used welder for £200 and a few bits n bobs and youre away , i dont suppose those patches will be the end of it , chances are it will need constant tinkering to stay a nice tidy car so if you want to run an ageing ford you really might need to roll your sleeves up or be prepared to pay alot for someone else to do it

[Blue Oval84]

Agreed, it's something to look into, I'm sure it will be an endless battle!

[swisstoni]

I just hate the idea of a young (I presume) man lumbering himself with this, but sometimes you have to work these things out your own way.

[steveo3002]

yes a rusty ford will be an endless battle , but if thats what you like then carry on

i personally think its the kinda of thing only suitable for a diy tinkerer you cant be paying out hundreds of pounds every time a light comes on or a simple repair needs doing

i enjoy messing with my old cars and have spend hundreds and hundreds of hours fiddling and fixing things , it doesnt really cost me alot though , but theres no way i could have paid a garage to keep fixing and patchings things up

[Ozzie Osmond]

Run Forrest, run!

[VolvoT5]

Time to cut your loses IMO. Pouring money into a rusty old mondeo is never going to end well for all the reasons already outlined.

[Kitchski]

VolvoT5 said:

Time to cut your loses IMO. Pouring money into a rusty old mondeo is never going to end well for all the reasons already outlined.

On one hand, I'd say I'm doing it with an old BX. On the other I'd point out I'm doing it myself, and if I wasn't then it'd cost a bomb. Make of that what you will!

[Tinkshusband]

would it be cheaper to just reshell it at this stage?
ie buy a tidy rust wise bog standard mondeo ( even if its mechanicly knackered) and transfer all the ST200 bits to it?

someone did something similar with an amg merc on here ( think that was a cat B write off rather than a rust problem tho) put engine and all the nice bits into a nice rust free shell ?

[ShaneBarnard]

Can't see the photos at work as the network blocks it but worth a trawl of the specialist Ford and Mondeo forums as I doubt this is uncommon. You may find there are repair panels for another car that miraculously fit the Mondeo sill profile, I did something similar with the rear arches on my Impreza, it turns out the front right wing wheel arch is the same profile as the left rear and vice versa so we were able to cut up a pair of front wings to make up the rear arches. As others have said, if you can do any prep yourself like removing and refitting trim and carpet etc it will save a lot on labour.