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Tue Mar 03, 2009 3:25 am

So I've got a little rust spot in the front-driver's side of the engine bay, on the frame just below where the brake booster exits the engine compartment... Most of it feels like surface rust, but there seems to be a deeper pocket against the firewall area.... I've just refurbished both battery trays with rust converter (there was minimal if any rust, so more of a preventative), but this bit has me a little concerned. Opinions? Solutions?

The rest of the bus, the underside and frame, is entirely rust free since the original undercoating is just now starting to flake off leaving perfect paint underneath. I intend to drop the engine and dismantle the entire underside of the bus to re-undercoat it/treat it in the next year. My question: How deep do rust converters penetrate? If I were intending to get this big patch fixed properly in a year or so, would it be good to clean it out as well as I can with a dremel or something, and then apply coats of rust converter and paint? Not as a permanent fix, just to keep it as well as I can till next year?

P.S. The brown color around the grommets and higher is dirt, not rust! I've only just started cleaning! :oops:

Tue Mar 03, 2009 6:14 am

I've got rust in the same place on a '77 green Westy I bought for my wife.
It doesn't look as bad as yours though and I'm going to cut it out and weld in new metal.
I wonder if many other '77 westies have that.
Maybe if we get enough owners to come forward, we could demand a recall :lol:
Rust converters don't penetrate as I think you mean it. That's why you need to get as much of the rust off as you can before using the converter.

Tue Mar 03, 2009 6:31 am

very common place for rust to appear for some reason.

What seems to happen is that water manages to get through a seam somewhere and rot it from the inside out. You may find that your chassis rail is full of flakey rust! It's the cause you need to find, not the remedy, for now at least

When you strip the underbody sealant, clean it off in the rear wheel arch too, then clean off with solvent and re seam seal the lot. Then when it's done, get some half decent underbody sealant like this stuff

http://www.motorfactorsgroup.com/coshhus.pdf

Had the rust in the same place in my 73 devon and just plated it. Won't be long before it needs it again :(

Tue Mar 03, 2009 7:01 am

The issue in that area is that there's 2 layers of metal and salty moisture seeps between. The fix is cut it out, but for now you can beat the crap out of it with a hammer to break up that battleship scale and rust treat it, then some paint and sealer.
It's difficult to get at where the cause of the leak for that one is, there's a thin gap between the frame rail and the inner fender, waxoil and a long spray wand would be my first choice.