Rusty Bottoms
Member
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2016
- Messages
- 121
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Time flies! Hope all is going well there. Love the pics from the camping trip, the weather here has turned nasty, but geared now up for some Cairngorms snow now after prepping the underside to get my through this winter before I do some proper chassis restoration/protection.
I bought a Vax pressure washer/steam cleaner and blasted the underside/chassis on mine from stem to stern before I went on a 4 hour return motorway trip to St Andrews on one of the last warm dry days we had this year, was pleasantly surprised how rust-free most everything was, then let it dry a few more days. I then sanded/wire brushed a few small spots, and used Bonda rust primer, the best stuff imo, then topcoated with Hammerite and then sprayed waxoyl on what I could, mainly wheel arches and frame rails.
It literally started raining and turned cold a few hours after I finished spraying the waxoyl, so glad to have protected it for this winter. I still want to drop the fuel tank and rear exhaust, and am getting a decent size air compressor and making a small blast cabinet from a large 110l plastic storage tub to start really cleaning and painting bits and bobs over the winter in my shed which I've finally cleaned and turned into a mini-workshop. Would love to lift the body off the chassis next year and really blast/clean everything and paint it properly with a bonda/chassis paint combo, so it doesn't look like my poor Suzuki Jimny in a few years!
On a 1UZFE note, I recently made a 220mile round-trip work journey up to Inverness taking backroads, and managed 25.2 mpg over the Cairngorms and several 20% grades, so amazed at fuel economy. My 1328cc Jimny with super-heavy 29"ATs retreads on 16x7 steels does the same or less and is painfully slow, and only manages 30mpg with road wheel/tyre combo over the same route, and is still considerably slower...
Anyway, I've written a book here! Catch you soon and all the best!
I bought a Vax pressure washer/steam cleaner and blasted the underside/chassis on mine from stem to stern before I went on a 4 hour return motorway trip to St Andrews on one of the last warm dry days we had this year, was pleasantly surprised how rust-free most everything was, then let it dry a few more days. I then sanded/wire brushed a few small spots, and used Bonda rust primer, the best stuff imo, then topcoated with Hammerite and then sprayed waxoyl on what I could, mainly wheel arches and frame rails.
It literally started raining and turned cold a few hours after I finished spraying the waxoyl, so glad to have protected it for this winter. I still want to drop the fuel tank and rear exhaust, and am getting a decent size air compressor and making a small blast cabinet from a large 110l plastic storage tub to start really cleaning and painting bits and bobs over the winter in my shed which I've finally cleaned and turned into a mini-workshop. Would love to lift the body off the chassis next year and really blast/clean everything and paint it properly with a bonda/chassis paint combo, so it doesn't look like my poor Suzuki Jimny in a few years!
On a 1UZFE note, I recently made a 220mile round-trip work journey up to Inverness taking backroads, and managed 25.2 mpg over the Cairngorms and several 20% grades, so amazed at fuel economy. My 1328cc Jimny with super-heavy 29"ATs retreads on 16x7 steels does the same or less and is painfully slow, and only manages 30mpg with road wheel/tyre combo over the same route, and is still considerably slower...
Anyway, I've written a book here! Catch you soon and all the best!
. Speaking of internal chassis rails, my offside is still half-packed with (fortunately bone dry) dirt, whoever did that must have buried it up to the axles at some point. The rails are still rock solid and I've gouged away at what I can reach through access points, and need to give it a proper blast as well, which may entail removing bumpers. That's the last real problem area on mine beside dropping the fuel tank for a sand & paint. Never ends! I use mine for work, which is mainly in fields and muddy access tracks, nothing mega by offroad standards, so once I get all this sorted, it 'should' be good for many years with a little maintenance and cleaning from time to time. I didn't have any mudguards so bought some generic sparco mudflaps from Roughtrax, really helps save the lower paint. We've already had snow here over the Lecht. Happy snowwheeling!
