Monaro underseal / addressing rust

[unosdostres]

Hello all,

My first post in perhaps 10 years! Just had the MOT done on car and the tester showed me the rust which is starting to appear underneath. It looks somewhat worrying. Has anyone had rust addressed and under-sealing done of late? I am after a recommendation in the South / Surrey / Hampshire / Berks area. The only posts I can find are a few years old

I've had the car since it was a year old (LS2 VXR 2006) and would dearly like to keep it for as long as I can. Just worried about the situation underneath and really need to do something.

Thanks

Edited by unosdostres on Thursday 27th September 21:31

[dan mugglestone]

Just got in from the garage from doing exactly this job.

cant help with reccomending anyone in your area ,

but for the price of £100 some wire wheels and brushes you can do it your self . Its a messy job the hardest being scraping all the rust away but once you start spraying underseal its only about an hour

[vxr2010]

I agree on above , i have a wire brush that goes into a drill plus a hand wire brush , then when you have got it cleaned up then underseal it slows the process well worth doing , an under seal spray helps with hard to get to places , worth taking the front bumper off to do box sections too

[unosdostres]

Thanks both, for the quick and prompt reply. A wonderful little community.

I've a mate with a garage so DIY is an option.

If someone has any recommendations then I'll also look at those. Want to get it sorted before the Winter sets in.

[Lincsls1]

Had mine done a few weeks ago at the back end of that super hot weather. A great time to do as the car has been so dry underneath for so long.
Yours doesn't look too bad, nothing terminal. Just have a good look at the chassis rails, be good if you can get some protection inside the box sections. Get a good coating on all those brake pipes too, and on the exposed sections under the arches.
Is it a daily driver? Mines been retired of daily duties, only to be used in fine/dry/salt free weather and always garaged. I'd say that's probably the best way of slowing down the corrosion as much as possible.

[unosdostres]

It's really a weekend car. Ideally I wish I could keep it in a garage.


It looks like I should make a start to get this sorted out soon. Thanks All for your contributions and suggestions.

[mfp4073]

If that was my car I would find a reputable company that restores classic cars and have them blast the underneath and then rustproof it.
When I bought my Monaro I had it rustproofed by a new car dealer. However I didn't do any research on the company and guess what? strangely enough they did a crap job, so you do need to do a few background checks.
Since that experience I've done the job myself, I also top it up every couple of years and the car is in good condition.
Whatever you decide to do you, It will be easier if you can remove both front and rear bumpers together with the side skirts and all the exhaust heat shields,
It's a messy time consuming job to do but worth it if you are going to keep the car.

John

[Aitch H]

Not quite Surrey or Hampshire but Neil at NWJ looks after a lot of our cars in the South. He’s in Kent, in the Maidstone/Rochester area and bought a lot of Rogers stock when Monkfish closed down. Give him a call 01634 862 532

[designforlife]

CSK automotive in Hoddesdon.

[throwyourbike]

That doesn’t look bad at all, I wouldn’t panic but always good to get it early.

I used Dinitrol RC900 on any edges/corners that looked a bit rough and did the box sections with Dinitrol 3125. Highly recommend both but they are quite expensive, especially the RC900.

I bought a bottle of Aquasteel recently to do a few patches on the rear subframe and it seems to do the job too.

My car is garaged, does less than 500 miles a year and hasn’t seen rain in a loooooong time. As above I reckon that will probably be the first line of defence until I get around to doing a proper job.

[unosdostres]

That's good advice. I'll report back when I get this done given you've taken the time to share knowledge.

Gotta keep the big V8 running. https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/imgs/6.gif

[maccavvy]

i did mine with a wire brush on a grinder .. bit more aggressive than a drill one.

if it goes back to bare I used zinc primer. then covered with buzzweld WAR I did all the chassis rails and box sections with bilt hamber dynax s50

I check and touch up any at mot time too when I see it on the ramp

[marksx]

With my first Monaro, I stripped everything off the underside of the car from the gearbox back, got rid of any rust (thankfully very little), applied zinc phosphate primer, then a layer of epoxy paint with dynax UB on top. Inside the sills were sprayed with wax, along with the inside of the wings. Did under the bumpers too.

A horrendous job on my back! It probably cost between £100-200. Time though, hard to gauge as I did it in bits here and there.

[Lincsls1]

I did notice under my car that there were sections of the under body that don't seem to get any road weathering and look to be completely corrosion free even after 14 years and 80k miles so I can't see those areas suddenly about to succumb to rust anytime soon. Might be best to leave such areas alone?

[thunderbubble]

Hello unosdostres,

It's been a while since I posted on here too.
I've just been looking into the very same thing (although not quite as bad a grip on my 8 as I had the FISH's rustproofing done about 8 yrs ago)
Anyhoo, not sure how far you want to travel but mine is booked in for next year when it comes out of hibernation with a company just up the road from Monkfish's old place.

"pro-tectservices"

Although I haven't had any work done yet, I did see a finished Dodge Ram on their lift which looked incredible underneath!
Both my son and his best best mate are getting their Alfa GTV's done there next month so I'll be able to report more details then.

Price is not cheep but their work is extensive using dinitrol products and you can tell them how much you want doing, as in localised or the entire underneath.
Bare in mind (if you get a price) that 8 yrs ago I paid around 1k for the same job.
I hope this might be useful to others on here too.

[unosdostres]

Hi All,

Thanks guys for sharing your experiences and recommendations of where to get the work done. I have now booked myself in for early November with one of the mentioned garages.

As some of you have mentioned it looks like surface rust rather than something more worrying.

Time and space prevents me from addressing it myself so I'm happy to pay someone else to do the work.

I'll share the experience and pre and post photos once the work has been done with a view to helping others who may be looking to do the same in the future. About time I contributed to the forum.

[slimtater]

Worth looking at www.rust.co.uk for some tips - I would strongly recommend a rust converter once you have prepped the surface.

[Jota11]

Hi this is my first post so hope it works .Had mine done in may by Michael at underbody protection Lindfield West Sussex. It was not cheap but he did a really excellent job, he took all relevant parts off and got rid of any rust .Then used dinitrol wax base coat 3125 and top coat 4941 black all sprayed on .Have got pictures in a win zip file but am a bit of a ludite and can't get them to .load .Hope this is of use

[unosdostres]

Good information building up here.
You need to unzip images. Can then attach using link "upload an image".
I will post back next month when mine is done.

[marksx]

You know, after doing my first one I swore I would never underseal a car in my back on again as it's horrible work.

But. My geabox diff and prop are off. I'm half way there. Off to bilt hamber I go...