Rust Buckets

[cort16]

My first car was Ford Cortina, which had been in the family for 7 years and had been held in pretty good shape as my dad was a painter and panel beater and was therefore able to weld it up and paint it at his leisure. Around about 1993 he bought a new car and gave me the Cortina. It passed the first years MOT with no advisories then went rapidly down hill from there once my Dad was no longer patching it up (he chucked the panel beating and gave away all his tools).

 

I knew it was letting in water by the black ice I'd often slip on on the carpet. I didn't know the extent of the issue until I was hit on the foot by a fairly large rock while driving at about 50mph. When I pulled the carpet I found a fair sized hole in the floor, which I fixed by smothering a sports sock in fibre glass and jamming it in the hole. The usual cortina rust traps on the inner wing was dealt with using expanding foam. Come MOT time it failed on the hole (obviously) but also failed on rotted out fuel tank mounting brackets. I took it to my trusty (read cheap and keen) mechanic who welded up the floor but couldn't find any decent metal on the inside so welded a bit of old trawler to the outside of the rear valance then bent it over. It didn't look great. 

That was the last year it was on the road (after I fixed a stuck valve and put a new gearbox in it) I stuck it in a lockup and when I came back a year later I couldn't find one bit to jack it up on without going through the floor. It broke my heart to scrap it but it was too far gone.

 

It was Venetian red with red seats. This is the only other one I've seen (sold by the doctor for 8 million quid).

 

 

 

 

Around about the same time my Mate had a Subaru GLF that he'd had a for a few years. Everyone that got in it commented how soft the carpets where, which was because there wasn't any floors.

He bought toffee MOT from a pub in Edinburgh and ran it until he took it to a tyre place and they couldn't find one good bit to jack it on including  the chassis rails.

The tyre guy suggested he had a about a 1 in 42,256 chance of surviving anything over a 5mph impact if he crashed it so he weighed it in.

 

 

Any tales of galloping rusty shite heaps?

[Bren]

Vauxhall royale.

 

Strut towers and inner wings decided they wanted to touch the engine.

 

Sorted by a decent welder - car was finished off by a transit. Utterly rotten - nothing rots like an old vauxhall.

 

Mk1 escort bought off a work colleague - another shit box. Had a mk V tina like yours - the boot floor consisted of the fuel tank.

 

Rover SD1 - say no more.

 

Thank fuck I can weld.

[montytom]

I think most old cars were rust buckets not just british cars which most people seem to think

[Taff]

Mk 3 tincorna in Dagenham racing yellow with a black vinyl roof AND a sunroof. 2000cc as well and the crowning glory, I cunningly rearranged the FORD letters on the boot lid to spell ROD. It owed my £200 from a mates girlfriends big brother's dad, or something, and provided hassle-free motoring until I sneezed going through Chippenham and hit a bollard at a mini-roundabout. This 20mph shunt resulted in the passenger side wishbones & spring joining me in the passenger compartment as it turned out there was little between it and me other than newspaper and filler.

[Micrashed]

I had a D plate Metro which at 4 years old had rotten door bottoms all round.

[Vin]

I think most old cars were rust buckets not just british cars which most people seem to think

 

Let me fix that for you....

 

I think most old cars were rust buckets not just british Italian cars which most people seem to think

[oldcars]

My mum had a Ford KA, It was on a 54 plate, and rotten. Sills, around the fuel filler   God knows what held it together. 

[Craig the Princess]

An Austin A40 Farina. The third car we bought as we wanted a project as the other ones were to reliable (sic), the only car e every got rid of, sold to a shoddy local old boy where we think the engine went into a miget.

 

Both floorpans were tissue thin with lots of holes, the strengthening bars were rotten, front wings rotten, inner wings rotten, front valence rotten, doors rotten, rear wings rotten, rear valence rotten, bootlid rotten and roof starting to go.

 

Pretty little thing though.

[Asimo]

Fiat 127 with chicken-wire and concrete sills. These were really well done and completely fooled me so I bought it. It lasted about a month.

The sills were quite heavy and the passenger side sill fell off complete on a level crossing, taking the passengers floor with it. This frightened my passenger somewhat. But it still handled beautifully.

 

NSU Ro80 which had once carried ammonium nitrate fertiliser which had spilled and completely eaten the boot floor and under the rear seat. Shame 'cause it looked great and drove beautifully.

 

Lancia Gamma coupe: some of this was made of zinc-coated steel which just emphasised that the rest was made of branflakes. Rear window fell out 'cause nothing left to support it. Bodged with silicone mastic and (guiltily) sold.

[cort16]

The TR7 I had was pretty bad. The floors being non existent I could expect but the mounts for the trailing arms being held on by a thread of rusty paper thin steel was more worrying. I'm sure it was one large speed bump away from the entire rear suspension setup detaching from the car. I started cutting the rot out then got depressed and gave up.

They guy I rent my lockup off condemned it on site after spending lots of time welding them up when they were 3-4 years old. He'd even developed a special way of reconstructing the rears uspension mounts using these giant thick washers he'd paffled from somewhere.

 

I sold it on then I saw it on ebay again in the same state, then again and thought this thing is defo for the crusher then it pinged up fully MOT'd with new floors and a spiffy paint job for 900 quid or something.

 

I would have bought it back but the 4 speeder in it was hard work.

 

 

The money shots

 

IMG_2130 by cort16, on Flickr

 

IMG_2124 by cort16, on Flickr

 

IMG_2132 by cort16, on Flickr

[Rocket88]

Chrysler Newport 2 door. Doors dropped 4 inches when you opened them..............................discovered the bulkhead was almost entirely sculpted from expanding foam...........

[cort16]

There seems to be a surprising amount of structural expanding foam in the MOT and bodywork arena.

[Joey spud]

Even late Ford stuff seems to still rot badly if scratched panels dont get treated.

 

 

[mercrocker]

That's probably cats piss come through from inside....

[scruff]

Looked OK from underneath...

 

 

 

 

 

[cort16]

Was there not someone on here welding up a mk5 06 plate golf recently as well?

 

The inner arch setup, which looks suspiciously like it's made of old tights and front wing mud trap on Pumas is particularly note worthy as these are reasonably new cars so they should know better. 

[cort16]

Looked OK from underneath...

 

208495_10150248121622796_6298230_n.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

How many times have I said that? "I've not looked underneath it but it looks okay from the outside"

 

35 seconds later.

 

[scruff]

That is liderally what happened...

 

[DavidB]

MR2?

 

 

[DVee8]

A 1986 Ford Sierra 2.0is,made using Fords new to 85-86 see through metal.The car was only 4 years old when i got it.the wings bubbled,inner wings changed colour more than cameleon,rear arches and boot floor crispier than krispy kreme.complete heap of shite. 

[Felly Magic]

B reg Maestro EFi, all four doors were rotten, front wings, arches, spent a small fortune having this all attended to, a few months later, rust blisters once again on the door bottoms, so I thought fuck this, and chopped it in for an F reg 950 Fester as I was also fed up of being bum raped for the insurance. Fester was a mintola giffer owned car, never even had a stereo fitted, it got severely Garyboy'd, chucked that in when the boot floor and sills started to go. Mum had a 98 Skoda Felicia LX that within 3 years started showing alarming rust on the tailgate and front wings, dealer replaced under warranty with new panels. 

[overrun]

MR2?  

That is 100% an AW11 mk2.

I have pics of mine, being hoisted away, somewhere.

[overrun]

A 1986 Ford Sierra 2.0is,made using Fords new to 85-86 see through metal.The car was only 4 years old when i got it.the wings bubbled,inner wings changed colour more than cameleon,rear arches and boot floor crispier than krispy kreme.complete heap of shite.

 

D for doom?

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Seeing more and more Golf Mark 5's with the telltale rot spot at the top of the front arches. I've also seen an 08 plate Mazda 6 that looked okay on top, but underneath every seam was fattening up with rust - the car will need welding in 2-3 years, no question. I've seen E39 5 Series that have entire sections of the outer sill MIA under the black plastic covers.

 

However, my recently departed '04 Zafira was like a new pin underneath. Proper cars them Voxalz.

[r.welfare]

I heard that Mazda still don't galvanise their steel, and their seam sealer has some kind of acid in the adhesive.  You'd think by now they'd do something about that, given they have such a rot reputation.

 

Certainly my MPV has far more grot about it, above and below, than either my recently departed Accord or Avensis which were a year either side in age.

[DVee8]

Yep D for Dooooom D985 TFT.Even the bean tins it will have been turned into will have rusted away.

[spike60]

Ford Transit Harbour Police van about 2001 ish. We had it on our ramp and the rear floor was falling out all over, leaving only the chassis rails and cross members when it was about 7 years old. I've only seen rot like that on things abandoned in fields for decades, let alone a clean tidy lightly used vehicle with MOT. Wasn't even useable as a site runabout. Not idea what caused it, the're usually fine.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

 they have such a rot reputation.

 

 

 

But do they? BMW's don't have a reputation for being rusty shit and neither do Mercs now. Reason? Anyone buying a new car doesn't give a shit what it's like in 8 years time because they won't own it. Vauxhalls have been better built and more durable than VW's for the last 20 years but which has the image of infallable reliability? Bloody ridiculous.

[xtriple]

I had a mk1 Escort of 72-3 vintage that had floors made out of pop rivetted alloy sheet - passed an mot like that as well! But the best was my stepDad who fell for the charms of a Midget at a car auction which he'd attended (at my insistence!) to help me drive a heap back. This midge was bright red and looked... okay on top but had no mot or tax and the dealers were ignoring it in droves, of course the old man stuck in a bid and won it for £90.

 

When closer inspection revealed a disturbing lack of anything remotely resembling a floor, the old man was studiously unperterbed and spent many a happy evening in the garage making a floor out of tinfoil sheet (the stuff you wrap your turkey in to cook) and underseal. Bare in mind, this is a man who was a bone fide engineer!

 

Later on we rented out that house and he flogged it to one of the tenants as it was still sat in the garage!

[Guest Breadvan72]

My old Lancia 1300 is too rusty to be done within my budget,.  Ã‚£500 and it's yours if you fancy big weldage and paintage.  Mechanically nay bad.