Rescued a One elderly Owner K plate Diplomat saloon

[3cav3]

Looking forward to seeing it come back together. Are you painting it yourself or getting a body shop to paint it?

I've got a guy I know who can do it for me, due to my OCD, or more like indecisiveness, I can't make up my mind what I want done, for example I think only the bottoms of the doors need done, then I think well maybe the whole doors, will I take the doors to the guy or whole car, then I can get all the doors done, then bring it in for the sills and back end......and on it goes!

Hopefully your guy lives in this world when it comes to paint. There's a body shop on the estate where I work, and so I could budget for getting my van painted I asked him how much to blow it over, if I prepped it all. He quoted at least £3k! I could understand so much and even more if he was doing the prepping. So I have bought myself a gazebo and some spray booth filters and will be doing it myself.

[Robsey]

I fell very lucky when I had my car done.
Troy (my car restorer and former club member) was initially located in a unit close to some eastern european lads who did car body repairs.

He was able to get a very low quote of about £1000 for them to strip, prepare, paint and reassemble the car.

Although they were quite clumsy in handling some of the trims... overall they did a modest job.

[cavalier1990]

I fell very lucky when I had my car done.
Troy (my car restorer and former club member) was initially located in a unit close to some eastern european lads who did car body repairs.

He was able to get a very low quote of about £1000 for them to strip, prepare, paint and reassemble the car.

Although they were quite clumsy in handling some of the trims... overall they did a modest job.

Me being me I hate giving up my car to someone else to do work on it, i'll be all over it with my OCD eyes trying to find any fault. Ideally I'd like to strip the doors down and get them painted as a clean shell however ripping all the original weather sheeting makes me cringe lol. Maybe I'll just swallow my pride and remove it carefully. I do have spares sheets after all in case I tear them! Yeah I'm going to have to take them off if I want this done.

Once doors done I can put them on then get the sills, back panel and R/O/S quarter done. I was thinking if I could get it mot'd before taking ot to get final painting done.

Means I wouldn't need to get it tow trucked to get paint finished. Sounds like a plan!

[3cav3]

Can't wait to see the end result. I love it when vehicles get a second chance at life. Far to many get scrapped in our throw away society.

[Robsey]

Yes - I am waiting eagerly for this and the Senator to make a public appearance.



Update - pms received, thanks.
Noted down your vin details.
Surprised to find the Senator has the SC804 radio cassette.
Sounds great from the specification (poc) list.

[cavalier1990]

Hi all

Been mega busy recently, working from home, doing garden stuff, trying to fix garage roof to keep leaks at bay, and just this last week or two I found the solution to my rusty car bits. I built an electrolysis tank to put the bits in to clean off the rust. Where did I get this idea? Well I do remember vaugely (I don't remember any other way!) seeing this about 10 years ago, but never thought much about it. Probably because I didn't understand it or how to build it, but it's really easy.

I watched a video on youtube someone doing it and 2 rainy sundays ago I got a storage box out the garage, got some scrap steel sheet for the sacrifical anode, a power supply from a laptop and some welding wire to get power. I put spade terminals with the little holes, and some lengthy wires, on the end of the laptop bullet connector and taped it up, which the welding wire would then go through to create the connections. Drill a hole in the sheet metal, wrap the wire round that and connect up the other wire.

Firstly I put in the back brakeplates, one at a time, and done it for about 10 hours each, results were quite amazing, the rust just washes off to leave the metal that hasn't been eaten away, luckily only a fewpin holes on one of the plates, but good enough to clean and paint with primer, top coat will be later. I then hung the strut top cups, the rear bumper bracket and the little rear roll bar securings into the solution from a strip of wood and some welding wire, tied the wire all together and then connected up the Power.

Again results were really good, and the great thing is you do not need to do any labourious sanding/grinding etc. when you then discover half the rust is still embedded into the little pores.

I've now graduated onto using my blue big as a container to put the axle in and am currently finishing off the other side, the axle will only sit up long ways in the bin, so I filled it half way with water as it would otherwise to be too heavy to empty when finished, plus i'm doing half a side at a time anyway, so it made sense.

You put bicarbonate of soda in the water to make it more conductive, I had about 1.5 amps going through it and at 20v, obviously the sacrifical anode and car part should not be physically touching, nor have the positive onto the anode as the car part will rust instead.

Very interesting piece of kit, not complicated, and easy to put together yourself. Here's a few videos of it working the first time I done it.

You can see the little streams of bubbles from the edge of the plate starting:

https://andrew-cars.s3.eu-west-2.amazon ... Bath_1.mp4

THen after an hour or so it starts going like this:

https://andrew-cars.s3.eu-west-2.amazon ... Bath_2.mp4

Then after 3 or 4 hours you get all the scum on top that is the rust coming off the part:

https://andrew-cars.s3.eu-west-2.amazon ... Bath_3.mp4

And some of the results from after it:







I'm chuffed with the results, and judging by the axle a lot of the rust is loose and will just flake off when I clean it down. you can see the rough bits where the rust has eaten into, this all just falls off, there is also a few wee pinholes if you look closely but nothing major.

[Mk3alan]

Excellent stuff and it gets to where the wire brushes and grinders can't.
I set up a tank a few years ago and was quite impressed with the process.

Alan

[3cav3]

Always wanted to give this a go. Until now though I've had good results soaking rusted parts for a week or so in a bucket of brick acid.

[Robsey]

Interesting stuff,
As you are in a water and bicarb solution, do you not need to dry the part as quickly as possible to prevent rust from starting up again?

Or is it a quick dip in rust converter / inhibitor.?

I presume, in the trade, they would swap the sacrificial steel part for a chunc of zinc to galvanise the car part.

Or am I talking baloney.?

Brick acid??
I am sure if that was me, then I would probably come back to a dissolved part - lol

[cavalier1990]

Always wanted to give this a go. Until now though I've had good results soaking rusted parts for a week or so in a bucket of brick acid.

It's definitely a step up from rust treatment, I've found even best rust treatment it just creeps back through. I think the thing with this is it attacks the rust down to a cellular level hence it just peels off/washes off. Obviously it's not 100% but I think is the most effective way to do it.

When you're buffing down rust it just polishes the underlying deep rooted rust, and just cleans off the crust on top, this removes that deep seated stuff too. Bonus is you don't need to do any grotty grinding and buffing down, just plop it in a tank for a day!

[cavalier1990]

Interesting stuff,
As you are in a water and bicarb solution, do you not need to dry the part as quickly as possible to prevent rust from starting up again?

Or is it a quick dip in rust converter / inhibitor.?

I presume, in the trade, they would swap the sacrificial steel part for a chunc of zinc to galvanise the car part.

Or am I talking baloney.?

Brick acid??
I am sure if that was me, then I would probably come back to a dissolved part - lol

Theoretically yes, I usually give it a quick blast over with a hose to get the scum off, then an electric wire brush, this is then to get all the flakes off, and give it a final polish thn primer. The issue I have got with the axle is I had to turn it round to get the other side done, so there bit I just done is lying out in open air.

Hopefully I can get this all cleaned tonight, though I want to give it as long as I can in the bath as it's big flakes of crust that come off, and it's taken a couple of days to do the other side, although that was me playing about with the solution until it was conducting enough.

Regarding the zinc, I'm sure they make the polarity opposite so that the zinc is pulled off the zinc plate onto the part i.e. negative on the car part, in this case the rust is moved to the anode, and you have the + on the car part.

[cavalier1990]

Can't believe it's been over 2 years since I updated this. I suppose I did sort of put this one on the back burner as I had bigger fish to fry (A fish called the Senator!). So I always had in my mind that I wanted to fully replace the sills with genuine items as this cavy is not a bodge up job, if I can replace panels with genuine, then I will do so where possible.

I did source 2 OE full sills from Germany and the next step was to remove the old pattern patched sills I put on plus remove the remaining top original section of the sill (That I joined the pattern sills onto) so that the whole lot comes off in one complete section. No mucking about here!

As the garage was a bit of sty what with Omega Elite stuff lying around, bits off the spare door for my blue cavy, lawn mowers etc. I had cleared a bit of space at the drivers side, actually wasn't too bad as I had a floor brush up about 6 Months ago. Once back door was lifted off, then got on with starting to drill the back of the sill off.

I couldn't be bothered lifting the front door off as well, as it's well heavy and I'm running out of space to put things, so will tackle that another day.

Here's a small pic of the ensuing work:



You can see the spot welds have been drilled out, keen eyed might also be able to see my bodge join of the pattern sills along the section below where I'm drilling the spots out the sill, I tucked the new pattern sill up under the overhanging lip then spot welded it on.

I'm just going to do work on the dippy when I can't work outside i.e. it's bucketing today, or I am not on the senator. So progress will be partial, hopefully a bit more as the Winter dials up with more rain and cold I can work in the garage.

[Robsey]

Yes just over 2 years...
Seems a million years ago.

I forgot about the rust treatment solution.
Any feedback about the treated parts 27 months later?

Oh to have a garage.....
My wife would never see me if I had a garage.

Good stuff - it is a long time since we had a Cavalier based restoration thread.
So all eyes on you again Andrew - no pressure.

As usual, looking forward to seeing the progress.

[3cav3]

Its great to see you've managed to source some genuine sills, like you I've come to the conclusion that when ever possible genuine is definitely the way forward. However ive also learnt the hard way that sometimes the complete removal and subsequent replacement isn't always the best, as by the time everything is gapped and welded up, it takes just too long. With my cavalier, once my vans finished I will just let in a couple of inches of a pattern sill onto the back of mine. I think after my van the thought of full sills again would just give me a breakdown. However I can also fully understand why you are going this way with this project.

[cavalier1990]

Yes just over 2 years...
Seems a million years ago.

I forgot about the rust treatment solution.
Any feedback about the treated parts 27 months later?

Oh to have a garage.....
My wife would never see me if I had a garage.

Good stuff - it is a long time since we had a Cavalier based restoration thread.
So all eyes on you again Andrew - no pressure.

As usual, looking forward to seeing the progress.

The parts I done still seem to be ok and holding out, I think the brake backplates were a bit patchy but then dipping them in the rust tank does seem to strip the lot so you can see where the tin worm has been munching it away. I also put the back axle and bumper bar in it, the rear axle has a couple of little bits coming back through, but that is to be expected. I painted this with 2 pack epoxy primer, so you can see the rust if it comes back.

I painted the whole underneath with 2 pack primer - after buffing down and rust treating. The first time I done it there was quite a bit of rust came back through, highlihgted by the grey colour so easy to spot I then done it again, and focused more on the bits that came back, then 2nd time less came back. I think I need to do the final few bits and then I'll know the underneath is pretty much sealed against rust. Long and labourious way of doing it, but if a jobs worth doing n all that.

As I said progress likely to be sporadic on this, but hopefully can get some more done over the winter months when I'm stuck in out of the lashing rain and wind!

Garage is certainly a bonus, now that I have a full new dry roof, and new beams. I could do with a double now thinking on it, but then that would mean knocking this one down and rebuilding, which I had thought about at one point tbh, but not after getting a full new roof on it plus the garage had a side extension so it's almost a double size.

[cavalier1990]

Its great to see you've managed to source some genuine sills, like you I've come to the conclusion that when ever possible genuine is definitely the way forward. However ive also learnt the hard way that sometimes the complete removal and subsequent replacement isn't always the best, as by the time everything is gapped and welded up, it takes just too long. With my cavalier, once my vans finished I will just let in a couple of inches of a pattern sill onto the back of mine. I think after my van the thought of full sills again would just give me a breakdown. However I can also fully understand why you are going this way with this project.

I find spot drilling out the old panel and replacing seems to be a much cleaner way of working as opposed to all that grinding and fabricating. The drilling out of the spots can take an age sometimes, and sometimes they don't come out clean, I had that issue with a lot of spot welds and the solution was to buy a bigger diameter drill, works a treat.

I could have probably patched the sill ends but thought I wanted to do this one proper and not cut any corners so it was gen sill all the way! Sometimes you wonder what you are doing when 90% of the metal you are removing is perfectly fine!