What to do about heavy rust around the outriggers

[Tuga2112]

I have now addressed the situation in both my cars based on the suggestions above.

for those interested. pictures in the project threads.
yellow car
blue car

I also put new soundproofing just like Neal's post. so, its another issue resolved x2 in here

I Know i claimed to have this fixed 3 years ago,
Unfortunately. i didnt check the back of the outrigers, and they need work.

Im curious as to how can i Go back enough to inspect the rear jacking points ?
does the outrigger go all the way back there ?

[Rambo]

João - you need one of those endoscope/boroscope things that plug into your phone or tablet. It's basically a small camera on a long piece of wire.

There will be plenty of choices/prices on the likes of EBay or Amazon

[Tuga2112]

João - you need one of those endoscope/boroscope things that plug into your phone or tablet. It's basically a small camera on a long piece of wire.

There will be plenty of choices/prices on the likes of EBay or Amazon

I Have tried one of those, the quality of image on the one i have is not good enough to reach any conclusion.
on the driver's side i managed to get enough clearance to get a view from the battery compartment area and with some lighting coming from behind the seat I Can see that my outrigger on the back needs some work.

Im afraid Im going to have to cut access panels from the rear of the car undernearth. that requires me to remove the fuel tank, (which in turn requires the rear wishbone to be frettled with) but after that i can do a proper job in both sides and be 100% sure my car is in the best condition possible.

[ashm]

Apologies if this has been covered before, I didn't see it.
The manual gives the correct adhesive for the outrigger to undertray as "Beta Seal H.V.3.", along with Beta Wipe 3900 and Beta Prime 5402.

Can anyone advise where these products are available nowadays, or what alternatives are available?

What have forum members used when bonding replacement outrigger sections to the undertray?

Thanks,
A

[Tuga2112]

Apologies if this has been covered before, I didn't see it.
The manual gives the correct adhesive for the outrigger to undertray as "Beta Seal H.V.3.", along with Beta Wipe 3900 and Beta Prime 5402.

Can anyone advise where these products are available nowadays, or what alternatives are available?

What have forum members used when bonding replacement outrigger sections to the undertray?

Thanks,
A

i cant tell you where to get them... But i can tell you what i have used, and what someone from the forum told me to use (someone i trust to give me good advice)

what i have used in my work use "puraflex 40" PU adhesive, from Toolstation/screwfix so far i havent had any reason to complain however i havent had it in the car for long (less than a year)
What i was advised to use was "PU18" from a company called "bond it" ckaiing to be a high strenght PU sealand and adhesive.


I

[ashm]

Thanks!
A

[Simon_P]

I did some research a couple of years ago. You should be using a structural adhesive, and the primer is required othewise it will become neatly unstuck.

I'll post the details of what I used later.

[Tuga2112]

i will eventually have a video about the welding done at the rear of the outriggers but as it stands they fixed, and a couple of pictures

[clemo]

i will eventually have a video about the welding done at the rear of the outriggers but as it stands they fixed, and a couple of pictures

Excellent post .
Safe and functional above everything else ... good work

[chrisP]

I hope that this might help someone.

I have tried lots of different rust management products, from hammerite, por15, dinitrol etc, some of them work a bit. But several years ago I started using Bilt Hamber products and quite frankly everything else is rubbish in comparison. The rust remover products actually remove rust, the waxes seem to do what they say and the zinc rich primer has been on my daily driver for a year, without a topcoat (I have been busy) and shows no sign of rusting through.

If I was to do any new work on my Elan I would use these. https://bilthamber.com/product-category/anti-corrosion/

Chris

[Steve A]

I hope that this might help someone.

I have tried lots of different rust management products, from hammerite, por15, dinitrol etc, some of them work a bit. But several years ago I started using Bilt Hamber products and quite frankly everything else is rubbish in comparison. The rust remover products actually remove rust, the waxes seem to do what they say and the zinc rich primer has been on my daily driver for a year, without a topcoat (I have been busy) and shows no sign of rusting through.

If I was to do any new work on my Elan I would use these. https://bilthamber.com/product-category/anti-corrosion/

Chris

I am also a big fan of their products, although I've only tried some of the cleaning products so far.

[Tuga2112]

I am posting this here prior to the video being available publicly,

this is the work i did at the rear of the outriggers.

I have a video also where i did some work fixing the jacking point, that is also avaialble on youtube (and the LEC wiki) however, since the topic of this thread is outriggers specifically. ill only post this video here.

one thing to note is that this is a record of how i fixed/repaired/solved the issue in my car. I am not a professional welder or mechanic. so take the advice with a grain of salt

either way i hope this can serve at least as some encouragement for others.

[ashm]

To those who have replaced the carpet underlay foam with closed cell foam: what did you do about the 2mm rubber sheet that it's attached to? Did you salvage that and attach to the new foam? Bin it? Stitch it into a poncho and wear it to the rugby?

Cheers,
A

[dapinky]

For me, everything went in the bin!

I used the 10mm foam and new carpet for mine.

[mattdovey]

I used 3M panel bond when I bonded my new panels in. Seemed to stick well. I did a bit of research prior to carrying out the repairs. The adhesives mentioned in the service manuals looked to be out of production long ago. The underlay was also shot. So I got some foam from Amazon. Worked well. I'll try and post some pictures.

[mattdovey]

I read this thread when we got the car and decided to ignore it. As I pretty much knew already that the car would be rotted. As pretty much everything on the car was corroded. So a couple of years ago I peeled back the carpets. Rust and holes at far as the eyes could see. Wonderful.
So it bothered me and I had to fix it. It turned out to be the longest job on the car so far.

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That's drivers side. What I wasn't expecting was the footwells to be rusted as well.

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Someone has tried to repair the front jacking point on this side. Basically they pop riveted a great big rusty bit of angle over the old rusty jacking point. This side also had a rotten footwell.

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This is behind the passenger seat. The rear jacking points were fine, thankfully. But there was a small patch on the rear bulkhead.
I cut out all the rust and treated the area to stop any further rust. I left enough good metal in the car to attach my repair panels to.

[dapinky]

Matt,

That is certainly one of the worst (or most advanced) case of rusting that I have seen.... or at least, the worst that hasn't spread into the rear jacking points.

The shocker is that someone in the past has been well aware of it and done such a bad thing (I can't bring myself to use the word 'repair') to the FNS jacking point. I presume they then covered it over and told the owner that it was fine, or if the owner was complacent, then quickly sold the car on.

Well done for cracking on with it, and the good thing is that the more this problem is highlighted, the more that owners realise that it is all repairable (with the time to do it) quite easily.... even if you need to employ a welder, it isn't really hard - just awkward and a not-very-pleasant job to do..... it's one of those jobs that gives great satisfaction, but doesn't actually improve the driving experience or beauty of the car.... and no-one gets to admire it afterwards!

[Tuga2112]

or at least, the worst that hasn't spread into the rear jacking points.

speaking of rear jacking points (i guess its another selling point for the S2 they dont have them?)

rear jacking points are repairable.. just a bigger faff to deal with.
access is trickier in this case, and you need to cut fibreglass, and then re-build it. these are just a few of the pictures ive taken.

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maybe one day, someone will be so bored that they will collate all the experiences in this thread and put up a wiki page.

unfortunately, welding aint a easy skill. i have been able to get stuff that is structurally sound, but only very recently (after this job was finished) ive been able to make a weld seam that is worth being proud of.

[mattdovey]

Originally I decided I was not going to weld any of the repair panels in. I was going to rivet and bond them in. My thinking was that the area isn't supposed to be "structural" and if the MOT testers arent bothered about it then it would be fine. Plus I didn't want to weld on a fibreglass car. This plan then changed when I saw the footwells needed repairing and I had seat belt anchor points to deal with. So I used a combination of welding, riveting, bolting and bonding the repair panels in. At this point anything would have been better than what was in there.
I suspect the existing "repair" was something a previous owner had done. But you can never be sure. I made up to two jacking point out of box section steel. I boxed one end of the box section off and put a riv-nut in it. So I could use a bolt as the jacking point and to hold the body in place. I bent up some 1.5 mm steel sheet. Welded the bent sheet to the box section. Trimmed of the excess material. Once I had made the repair panels, I position the jacking points by loosely bolting the jacking point in position using the hole in the outer fibreglass sill to get a rough position. Because I didnt trust my welding I planned to bolt and then weld my jacking points in position. Which seemed to work out well. The bolts did actually help hold everything in position while I welded it all in. Because the original jacking points were so rusty I had to cut the fibreglass outer sills to get the rusty stuff out. So I had to do a fibre glass repair on both sides as well. Joy.

[mattdovey]

So had some spare time so I thought I would post an update as I forgot to get around to it earlier.
So I ended up making 3 repair panels for the sills and 2 for the footwells. As mentioned before I used a combination of riveting, welding, bolting and bonding the panels in position.

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The above was the end result. So once all that was done I had to reassemble the roof after powder coating. Then fit a new hood. The roof is another story.