No question, rust is the eventual destroyer of many fine autos. Although
most of us attend to surface rust, I've been concerned for years that our
hollow, box-ladder frames could be rusting from the inside out (unlike more
traditional frame types, which are usually open).
Anyway, it's been common practice in the aviation industry to rust-proof
aircraft internally; e.g. inside the wings. The process uses a special
(translate: "expensive") rig to fog a chemically active rust
stopper/preventative
into the remotest nooks of the airframe (older, tube airframes have had
things like linseed oil sloshed in the tubing). I've been intrigued for years
with
the prospect of doing something similar for my Healey.
I few years ago I bought a cheap (about $40) rig from J.C. Whitney that is
supposed to be used to apply a thick, sticky, undercoating-like material
to the interior cavities of autos (it's essentially a spray rig). I'm not
about to
apply this gooey stuff on my Healey, but for several years I've been applying
a rust stopper/preventative to exposed metal on my chassis. This stuff is
called LPS3 and it leaves a soft, thin waxy coating on the metal (it's also
supposed to contain a chemical rust inhibitor). Wherever I've applied LPS3
the bare metal has remained shiny and uncorroded for up to a year or more.
Anyway, I finally got around to trying to "fog" the inside of the box-ladder
chassis.
Since most of my home-brewed science projects fail, I was pleasantly
surprised to find that this approach worked, and rather well. I shot the
LPS3
into existing holes in the chassis at about 80psi and was surprised to see
"fog" coming out throughout the chassis. I'm confident I got at least a
mist
of the LPS3 on most of the inside of the chassis.
The only "problem" with this rig is the nozzles are a bit big (1/2" dia.) and
there's
only a few existing holes that it can penetrate. At this point, I'm loathe
to
drill any holes in the chassis, but I'll think about it or look for a way to
use
smaller nozzles. I also replaced the original rubber plugs in the
chassis--which
at this point were basically just rubbery goo--with new plugs from Steele
Rubber. I'm considering buying plugs to plug more of the holes in the
chassis
(which appear to be randomly placed and serve no obvious purpose, save
perhaps drainage).
If anyone's interested the J.C. Whitney part number is WE815385B. I've had
success with LPS3, but I'm sure Waxoyl and similar products would work, too.
bs
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Bob Spidell San Jose, CA bspidell@comcast.net
'67 Austin-Healey 3000 '56 Austin-Healey 100M
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