I mentioned this on an earlier thread.... but here are some pics to show....Only the tops had rot...the bottoms and sides are perfect....49 years of junk!
Easy fix...just some nice flat guage to weld and done.
(http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q7/JEFFNORWELL/DONNIES%2057%20FORD/IMG_7398.jpg) (http://s132.photobucket.com/user/JEFFNORWELL/media/DONNIES%2057%20FORD/IMG_7398.jpg.html)
(http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q7/JEFFNORWELL/DONNIES%2057%20FORD/IMG_7397.jpg) (http://s132.photobucket.com/user/JEFFNORWELL/media/DONNIES%2057%20FORD/IMG_7397.jpg.html)
2 more pics....
(http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q7/JEFFNORWELL/DONNIES%2057%20FORD/IMG_7396.jpg) (http://s132.photobucket.com/user/JEFFNORWELL/media/DONNIES%2057%20FORD/IMG_7396.jpg.html)
(http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q7/JEFFNORWELL/DONNIES%2057%20FORD/IMG_7395.jpg) (http://s132.photobucket.com/user/JEFFNORWELL/media/DONNIES%2057%20FORD/IMG_7395.jpg.html)
Hey.....I recognize that....it's TEXAS dirt!!
Man did you luck out..don't think I've ever seen one before only rotted on the top of the rockers. Nice to see you getting started on it...you'll probably have it finished before mine.
Rich
I have a little tool I made for washing the inside of the rockers and the inside of the frame. Made a small nozzle that sprays radially, hook it to a 4 ft length of rubber gas line, to an adaptor to the garder hose. We are on city water and it is 65 -70 psi, that much pressure coming out of those little hole breaks things up and flushes the chunks out pretty good. I go into the rocker from the plug/hole in the very front and into the frame from a bunch of places. I do drill a 1/2" hole in the frame bottom just before it starts to go up in the front, just a little ahead of where the cross member bolts in. Have flushed out gravel, mouse nests, spiders and one snake skin (in a Texas car), messy but it does the job.
Questions for Jeff
1. After you get all of the heavy stuff out , how are you going to clean it so that you can apply some sort of sealer inside?
2. What are you going to seal the inside rocker with that it will get some good penetration?
3. Are you going to make the top cover piece removable so that you can monitor it and clean it again?
Quote from: Ecode70D on 2013-06-25 10:40
Are you going to make the top cover piece removable so that you can monitor it and clean it again?
:unitedstates:
I like this idea, might be overkill but if you're already repairing the rockers it would be the time to do it.
Zap-
Quote from: Ecode70D on 2013-06-25 10:40
Questions for Jeff
1. After you get all of the heavy stuff out , how are you going to clean it so that you can apply some sort of sealer inside?
ANSWER- I plan to clean with (first)CLR to remove all scale and flake surface rust.... this will loosen any small particle of dirt I cannot get by hand,then..power wash and throughly dry.
2. What are you going to seal the inside rocker with that it will get some good penetration?
ANSWER-I plan to open the factory drain slits open much more(1/4 inch at least)... the use a KBS or Eastwood Rust inhibitor product.(KBS Rust Blaster first)
then coat the insides with a chassis coat over the rust inhibitor(sounds unnessacary)But I never want to deal with this again.
3. Are you going to make the top cover piece removable so that you can monitor it and clean it again?
That could be a very good idea...using the door sill as a cover itself.... but my initial thought was to seal it permanently...and specially the entrance area hole at the lower front inside fenders(big factory hole on each fender)I was on planning of sealing that up with a rubber large biscuit of some sort.
Have any of you guys used ''Must for Rust'' rust remover, neutralizer. Used it on my B-B-Q and am quite pleased. Scraped off the big flakes the sprayed it on and in 15 minutes or so was covered with a white haze, wiped it off and followed it with rust-o-leum hi-temp paint. Fired it up to cook the finish on and it looks good as new. Found it at Lowes after seeing it in a metal working tool catalog for about 3 times the price.
Plenty of info online about it.
Zap- :unitedstates:
I think I mentioned it before, but every nook and cranny in mine is getting "Fluid Film".
(No, I'm not a dealer)
-non-evaporating
-Non-drying
Stays in place on vertical surfaces and goes into metal pores
-Displaces moisture
-yada-yada, probably will grow a new toe if you want one
But, it does work. It's used extensively in marine use here.
Yea...Fluid Film is AWESOME!.... I bought a built 312 stroker years back that was built,stored for 10 years.and still was filled and coated with Fluid Film!
Thanks guys!!! I was fishing for ideas.. Now I have some to look into.
Jay
That large hole in the lower cowl down behind the front fender came with a removeable rubber plug from the factory.
I have one question,or worry, now that I've done some on mine, about that fluid film. I'm assuming your talking about the petrolium based wax parrifin stuff like made by 3M. Since it is petrolium base, and never dries out, is it flammable? What would happen a few years down the road and you were welding in a repair patch panel to repair a dent in a rocker panel?
If Jeff's rockers were mine, I'd sandblast everything I could get at with the top of the rocker cut off then zinc phosphate followed by por 15. When I put my new rockers on, the inners and the inside of the rockers got por-15'd except very close to where it was going to be welded.
"[quote author=RICH MUISE link
I have one question,or worry, now that I've done some on mine, about that fluid film. I'm assuming your talking about the petrolium based wax parrifin stuff like made by 3M. Since it is petrolium base, and never dries out, is it flammable? What would happen a few years down the road and you were welding in a repair patch panel to repair a dent in a rocker panel? [/quote]"
Rich.....
That's a good point which I had forgotten about. I purchased my 40 from one of my customers. When he first bought the car and before I knew him, he had that sticky stuff applied to the bottom side. When I had to do an engine swap for him and any other related work on the under side of the car, I had to use rubber gloves because everything was sticky. My tools had to be soaked in solvent in order to get the stuff off. I always "jokingly" told him that the tools had to go back to Sears because they were ruined. At that time I had rented uniforms, so they were the ones that had to deal with getting it clean. That was a good thing because I never would have brought them into the house to do them at home.
That stuff was applied over 15 years ago and the underside of that car is still sticky, but not as much as when it was first put on. Can't say if the stuff works or not because we all know for the most part that we as "caretakers' never deliberately drive our toys in bad weather anyhow.
Maybe that fellow up there in the land of snow knows the answer. Most likely he doesn't take his cars out in the snow also.
You guys raised good points about working on the panels later so I got my FluidFilm, and a propane torch, went outside where flames or "booms" wouldn't matter and expected a conflagration.
I started with a piece of square tubing with water on it, sprayed the FF on while the piece was in the vise and applied the torch. Nothing happened except the FF ran down and away so I tried a piece of sheet steel and same thing. I thought, shoot- I gotta be able to light this stuff up and since it didn't explode I moved inside. I bent the sheet piece L-shaped and put in the vise, fired up the acetylene torch and repeated the test. What happened is the stuff ran done the vertical surface and puddled in the groove of the L shape. Here I was able to light it up but only where it stayed in a puddle, it kept running away and the flame would go out, no dripping flame.
Maybe it would act different if it was on for a few years, I thought it would be most flammable when fresh. I guess the next test is to see if it can be washed off with anything besides heat although any solvents are going to be flammable, I would think,and to see how long a closed container eg. a cup of it would burn on the surface.
By the way, Rich got more white stuff in the form of hail than we did here (which was zero) because of our proximity to the ocean. If we do get any it is gone in a day or two but it sticks on the mountains of course and stays up there until spring.
This movie stuff is kind of fun, thanks Rob! I'll post the video when it finishes uploading to Picassa -it's taking forever.
OK so here's the video of test #1, I've done test #2 but need to video it. Stay tuned, don't change the channel!
https://picasaweb.google.com/100786296601554262458/FluidFilmTest?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKqs7ZuJiMKHBg&feat=directlink
The stuff that ran off the top of the sheet went around underneath onto the bottom surface and onto the vise (I guess my vise won't rust now!), it seemed the same consistency, wherever it went, and I just wiped it up with a rag. Test #2 is lighting a container of FF.
Jeff,
I don't know if this will help you or not but I installed all new rockers, front to rear and even had to redo the passenger floor metal. I coated it with POR 15 paint inside the doors and passenger sides. There is two 1" rubber plugs that go in the front of the rocker and at the rear of the rockers where you have access to the inside. I used a harbor freight undercoat gun and a long aluminum pipe with holes drilled all around the end with the extreme end crimped. I used POR 15 Paint in the gun with about 50lbs of air blowing it through those little holes in the aluminum tube. You have to do front and back of the rocker. It was a mess. But. I had paint dripping out of my rocker weep holes for 3 hrs after I got through and I used a lot of paint. I had looked at the pattern of the paint spray in the yard and there's no way it didn't give me full coverage. Hopefully when I'm dead and gone 50 years from now someone will appreciate the damn mess I made doing it.
The second test has been uploaded (at same address as first). Like I expected, if the pool of FF is contained the surface will burn. When on a flat piece of metal it will disperse and not continue burning.
What did the tests show, well,
1. How easy it is to entertain me.
2. The fluid film will stay on a vertical surface unless heated or wiped away.
3. If the fluid can run down hill, even a slight slope, it will continue running as long as the metal is heated or it is again contained and allowed to pool.
4. If FF is on a vertical panel that you want to cut or weld, the panel can be heated to make it run away and if there are holes for it to escape it will.
5. Mineral Spirits will wipe away most of the FF. As it says on the can, FF will penetrate the metal (and displace the water) so heating the metal before welding would be advantageous.
I'm not going to worry about removing it in the future if it remains heatable when it's older. I'm going to talk with the guy who did his own environment test on this stuff compared to some others like WD40, last year I think, to see if he still has the test piece. I'll try heat on that.
As much as I like products as POR-15 etc., I can't believe that you can get all the moisture out of the metal before painting it on unless you heat the metal (ever put a torch to steel that's been sitting outside?) so there will be moisture under the "paint" and galvanic corrosion can take place. That "paint" is supposed to convert surface rust but does it penetrate the metal and dispace the water? I don't know.
Hats off to everyones efforts to rustproof their vehicles. My rockers went nearly 50 years with the factory rustproofing...in other words, NOTHING. I was in dealerships during the dealer installed rustproof craze. Most of those vehicles did not last much longer than the untreated ones. Increased rust protection or not, I absolutely HATED working on those sticky, POS. I would rather work on rust than rustproofing. I'm going with paint with paint treated with bed liner in the wear areas. The only salt my car will likely see is Bonneville!!!
Gasman, I agree. However, when you live in a rainforest climate like me you're going to get casught in the rain and water will go into all those nooks and crannys underneath etc.
Even if there's nothing my car's probably going to outlast me but at least I can say to the next owner (when I'm wheezing my last, rattling breath) it has been treated in the doors, tunk drops and anywhere else I can get the stuff into. My kids might get another penny or two. I don't think I would do it with eg. undercoating, seen that trap moisture when it chips/
Next guy no way. I bought five lots and am getting buried in mine!!!! Gonna try to take it with me.
LAUDY57
You sure did put a lot of time in that demonstration and it is appreciated.
Your garage is nice and clean also.
Thanks for the compliments but the most time was waiting for the uploads to Picassa.
I'm looking at the can again and I don't see why I thought it has petroleum distillates - must have dreamt it, but that means the Mineral Spirits couldn't have cleaned it as well as I thought, what dissolves wool wax? I don't know.
BTW my shop isn't that clean, I put a light coloured floor in it because I thought, Ahah! -I'll see all those little things that I used to drop in the dirt! Nope. Now I can't distinguish them from all the pieces of crud or swarfe that are laying around.
Well that's a big relief to know. When I get a chance I'll check the 3m version. "Burns only when it's in a puddle"....I guess it's acting like a wax candle that only burns the liquid that's absorbed into the wick, and the wax itself never catches on fire
Thanks for checking that out, Lorne.
Hail...here's something else you probably don't have much of...temps all this week 100-107!
100-107! That's how old I feel when I try to get up off the floor from under the car.
My car,born and raised in Kansas,was pull from a salvage yard in Minnesota.After running it for a few years on the street it was time to race it.There was so much dirt falling from the cars rockers after my first hard burnout the look TJ Snow,a starting line guy who I had known for years, was priceless with discuss.I wasn't sure what he was pissed about until the BBQ that night.It was cleaned up by the next race.
All I found in my rockers were newspapers from 1975...Casper, wyoming. They used it for backing the bondo. Not sure that system was all that bad...the bondo was still in there 30 years later. The newspaper provided some of the very little history I have on my car.
[quote author=RICH MUISE
All I found in my rockers were newspapers from 1975...Casper, wyoming. They used it for backing the bondo. Not sure that system was all that bad...the bondo was still in there 30 years later. The newspaper provided some of the very little history I have on my car. [/quote]
Rich....After 30 years were the panels starting to rust out at the edges of the Bondo? I heard of people using papers, chicken wire and stuff like that for backing. Seems to me that it would start to rust out as soon as it got wet inside. Looks like they used what they had to keep em running in those days.
LOL..hard to tell...after 30 years, it was rusting around ALL the edges.
That was the way to do it back in the 70's...anything to support the bondo while it was setting up. I don't think too many people, particularly the younger crowd, were into the mindset of keeping their daily driver looking good for 20 years or so.
The Nevada ranchero I bought from Randy Conner last winter, had a pair of Jeans and a top stuffed into the inner roof behind the dome light. Kind of creepy, looked like a small woman or a child. Mark :glasses7: