Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 12:17 pm
Any thoughts on Electro galvanising?
We can only speculate on how sp damage body shells. I sent 3 hillman imps there in 2006, and all 3 suffered the same distortion, which basically was the fact that the back end dropped by 30mm. One shell also had very bad fork lift damage to the sills.
Additionally there was some panel rippling on the scuttle and also in the centre of the doors.
The surface of the steel was also very active and prone to corrosion, you only had to start welding it and the surrounding area was brown by the morning, and every seam was seen to bleed rust. We got round the later problems by treating the shell with a derusting acid that contained a corrosion inhibitor, followed by pressure washing, followed by a manual phosephating processs followed by etch priming on the outside panels. Internal box sections in my opion are best left bare metal (ie not to e-cote) and waxoyl instead. This is so the wax can run into the seams and can sit on the bare metal surface. If it sits on paint, the paint could flake off along with the wax. I have had this happen on an e-coted modern car that I waxoyled, and then could not understand why it went rusty 8 years later.
We now have a new supplier that can control how they heat the shell, in an oxygen free enviroment, followed again by the derusting acid that contained a corrosion inhibitor, followed by pressure washing, followed by a manual phosephating processs followed by etch priming on the outside panels.
This is a kinder process that although is more labour intesive, I feel is a better process that avois any risk of sulphuric acid being trapped in the body seams. I am sure everyone knows what damage battery acid does!