Howdy all,

So I was having a gander around the nether regions of the old girl (OK I'll stop now..), and it struck me that there's a little of what looks like surface rust, nothing too bad. How much do you guys consider acceptable?
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If you're really concerned or want feedback post some pics.
Rust on the underside of a vehicle is normal unless it's rarely driven in any precipitation of any kind.

 

Good point. One would expect a degree of rust, just wondering what the generally accepted amount would be.

 

 

Thanks for that

 

That wouldn't make me feel great, but what do I know. Where do you live?

 

Ireland, but the car has spent most of its life in the UK. Obviously it has seen rain (plenty of it I'm sure!), but aside from not looking pretty, how likely is it to be a problem? The car has passed all its road worthiness inspections.

 

If its a uk car and depending if its used in the winter or not.
I would say it looks normal and nothing that can't be sorted if required.

 

Cheers man. I would've thought it was surface rust, nothing structural. It was had welding in the past in the trunk area, blocked drain holes I believe.

 

Yeah, thats less than optimal. Quite a bit of rust. Normally you only get that much of car has been driven on winter salted roads.

These cars weren't really built with that in mind. Not especially protected from ravages of winter.

Its really only a problem for two reasons:

Aesthetically

It makes it harder to service

Whenever you need to remove any fasteners for suspension, the diff, the subframe, alignments, they're much more likely to give you trouble.

The fasteners of particular concern here are those associated with an alignment, and the subframe bolts.

Its not at all uncommon for even non rusty examples of this car to experience rust frozen alignment bolts. These typically have to be hacked out in a time consuming and frustrating, yet delicate effort. Then all the hardware replaced with new. Not expensive if you diy, but probably very expensive if a shop does it.

You'll want to antiseize the heck outta everything on reassembly to prevent forever.

So it would probably be a good idea to lube these pieces up preventatively. Mark the alignment position, then remove fastener and lube it up. The bolt, the cammed sleeve it rides inside, the washers, etc. Then put it back exactly where it was.

The one most likely to be seized is the compliance bushing. But I'd do them all. Every alignment fastener, front and rear. You can identify them by their cam shaped washers.

Do them one at a time, or else reclock all the bushings at the end.

Next is the subframe bolts. If those seize, you'll have to hack up the frame, repace the captive nuts, then reweld the frame. Not expensive to diy, but over the top expensive to have done at a shop.

Subframe bolts have to be lowered when doing a clutch job. Lets lube these guys up so they don't seize if they aren't already.

Do front and rear. Do one bolt at a time. Remove the bolt, lube it up with antiseize, then reinstall.

6 bolts front, 6 rear, iirc.

Go slow, and don't use an impact. Last thing you want is one of them breaking. You may find they start off loosening ok, but then freeze up. The threads on top that stick outta nut are rusted, and as these threads threads make their way into nut, it gets harder and harder to turn. This is when they could potentially break.

If you experience then tightening up, stop. Get some penetrating oil and spray the exposed threads as best you can. Then run it back in, to try and get that penetrating oil into the captive frame nut. Back it out until it gets hard again, and repeat.

Go slow and methodical, and you should be able to get the bolt out.

These are supposed to be single use bolts, that you replace any time you even just loosen them. You can typically get away with reusing them, but if any had trouble coming out, replace them for sure.

Lube them up, and reinstall.

If you did them one bolt at a time, no need for a getting an alignment done.

Again, front and rear, one at a time. Lube them up with antiseize.

In future when working on this car, whenever a fastener is giving you trouble, use this same process. Loosen a little, spray, run it back on. Loosen some more, repeat. Then replace it and antiseize the new fastener.

Invest in a thread repair kit. Don't use a tap to clean up any buggered threads, as these cut metal away, making threaded hole weaker. A thread repair kit reshapes the threads, removing virtually no metal. No very expensive. Anytime there is a threaded hole that had trouble, use the thread repair on it.

You DEFINITELY don't wanna break one of those in threaded hole. So lube them up liberally, and go slow. In until resistance, then back off. Then in a little farther. Repeat until thread is clean. Patience.

Try not to think about how rusty your car looks under thete.

If it bothers you, look into a product called por15. Can paint it right over rust, once you brush away the loose stuff. If appkoed correctly will last forever and prevent further rust. And look good as well.

Following instructions religiously is key with this stuff.