I had a £5 voucher to use so I got them for £40 including delivery.
I’ve already got the wire brushes, so when the ramps arrive I really have no excuse to get to work on doing some rust preventative maintenance.
My plan was to wire brush, rinse then let it dry and apply rust proofing treatment.
I don’t own a pressure washer, steam cleaner or have a garage to be working in when doing this job but after doing some research between these two products I think I will probably go with the Lanoguard as it’s cheaper and easier to apply when doing it in the open.
I just wanted to ask if there was anything else to keep in mind, like don’t forget to remove the wheel arch liners? Is that a necessary part of the rust proofing procedure?
Also, there seems to be 2 types of Lanoguard kits. Regular for £76 or the Regular + injector kit for £92.
I’m guessing the injector kit is going to be handy to get into the hard to reach areas?
The current state of the underneath back in August when I got the new ABS sensors fitted.
If you are going to attempt this then personally I would go with the Dinatrol Kit. It is more expensive but trust me it will last a lot longer. The rust convertor is brilliant, you will need this because you will find rust!
Please take the time to remove the REAR arch liners, really easy to do and they hide a lot of horrors, this is what mine looked like after cutting the rust out out of my 2006 sport
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Take your time, be as thorough as possible, if you are young enough to get under the car it is not hard.
Good luck, I hope you only find surface rust.
I’d probably go with the Dinitrol mainly because I’ve used that in the past. That’s ok on most of the chassis parts but I’ve coated the most vulnerable areas (rear wheel arch/sill areas and up behind the rear wheel either side of the boot floor) with black epoxy mastic from Built Hamber. The latter is messy smelly stuff and a 2 part mix but pretty thick on application, rather like a thinner roof mastic. Definitely mask and gloves on. Use a rust converter after removing the loose and most rusty flaky bits. I then coated over the mastic paint with a spray of Dinitrol.
Probably best with a trolley jack and axle stands, wheels off, as how can you do the wheel arches with the wheels up on ramps?
Do rear end first on stands, arch liners/wheels off, then repeat for the front.
The ramps come in handy for doing the rear end and anywhere obviously when the wheels don’t need to come off.
Also I’d wash down first, preferably with a jet wash, let dry then wire brush the rust. I used a flap wheel on a Dremel to get to the nasty rust and get as far back to bare metal as possible.
In an Ideal setup doesn’t Dinitrol need a couple of days to apply and a dry environment to set properly?
Dinitrol does look like the better product tbh but I’m not currently in a position to apply the stuff inline with its application instructions.
Lanoguard appeals more because it sounds like I can get it done in a day just to get some basic protection on through this winter and then see what the new year brings. Potentially look into the Dinitrol again when the weather begins to improve.
This area below, the rear chassis members and exhaust hanger mounts + boot floor can rust away. Best treated with the rear exhaust back box off, I took the heat shield off too.
Under mine didn’t look that different from yours. First thing I did is get it up in the air with wheels off and remove the liners, see what I was working with. Citrus cleaner and jetwashing revealed it wasn’t in bad shape at all, most of what I thought may have been corrosion ended up being caked on dirt.
One thing I’d say for certain which I discovered by accident - if you can safely remove them then take off the side skirts to clean them out - they seem to be a poor design, there isn’t anywhere for anything to fall or drain out apart from a very tight gap against the sill. Mine were absolutely filled with old dirt but where the car had been stored inside for a bit it had all dried out. I didn’t take the skirts off as I didn’t want to break all the clips unless I had to so ended up tapping firmly all the way along them and the dirt just kept falling out until it stopped coming. If anyone hasn’t done this I’d highly recommend it, I reckon when all was said and done I had a good kilo of mud and grit.
I imagine this is part of the reason they rust along there, if that dirt is trapped between the skirt and the body and gets wet, you know the rest! The most dirt fell out right before the rear arches and behind the front arches, which seem to be problem areas.
The liners all came off easily. Front ones with a fingernail or small flat screwdriver, might of had the odd 10mm bolt. They go around the suspension strut so you can drop them but not completely remove without dropping the strut. Rear ones you may have trouble with the little screws down the bottom spinning the captive fixing while you’re trying to get them out. You’ll have to snip through a little bit of the carpet style liner to remove them fully unless you want to go into the car, remove the trim and disconnect and remove the abs sensor leads (where the red line is on the photo)
This NC (my current car) was treated around 4 years ago, full underseal and cavities. Earlier this year I removed the arch liners (rear) to reveal slight corrosion appearing. It was treated again around parts that need paint.
Preparation is key, whatever system you use. Your pics don’t look to bad. I swear by Dinitrol. After removal of all the loose rust apply the RC900 rust converter, once that is dry apply the 4941 under-seal and use the ML into box sections and cavities, Get onto the Dinitrol web site, they have kits for various types of vehicles. It’ll probably set you back around £500 (allowing for some additional cans). To get it done professionally will set you back £1000 and would take 3 days. Doing it yourself, on your back could take you a week or two depending on how through you are with the preparation.
Good luck.
Dave
