Rust Buckets

[AlabamaShrimp]

Car I learned to drive in off road was a fiesta on a C would have been about 10 year old and had all the normal holes in the front of the wings, scuttle, back arches and boot. As a bonus it also had a big hole behind the driver seat where string was holding up the handbrake cable.

 

Used to repair alot of cars in similar States and has been said 85 to 88 English Ford's were poo

 

I've got 3 and the 2 German ones are OK but the Spanish mk1 needs quite a bit doing..

[danthecapriman]

My mk2 Granada is a C reg, although it's a German built car. It has been waxoyled from new but anywhere the waxoyl hadn't got to had rotted. Rear inner sill ends were blobs of patched patches, A posts and inner wings rotted out etc. I spent a few years welding it back together again and it's fine now, refilled everything with dynax s50 and no more signs of rot coming back.

 

I had a B reg mk2 Fiesta 1.3 Ghia that had been patched all over the place, the windscreen seal leaked (rotten frame!) and filled the floor pans up with water. Eventually the pans rotted through and as it leaked it emptied itself! The clutch went in the end and it wasn't worth fixing due to the rot issues so I weighed it in. Wish I'd kept it stored somewhere now though!

 

My Capri is a Halewood car, it was rotten when I got it! Fist sized holes in the sills, rotten arches, floors, seatbelt mounts etc. Yet surprisingly the strut tops are sound and original! Normally one of the first places to go on a Capri.

 

Believe it or not I much prefer welding old rotters to pissing about with electrics/diagnostics on modern crap though! I really hate all that electric bollox!

 

When I was working as a mechanic we got a Datsun Cherry in for mot. It drove onto the ramp and within a quarter of an hour or so it left the ramp, mostly in a dustpan and bin bag! I've never seen a car so rotten and still be able to be driven! If it was in an accident it would of probably turned to dust!

It's a shame cars don't look like they used to when they get old, I used to love seeing old Cortinas etc with black tide marks and rust everywhere. People don't seem as willing to keep things going like that anymore.

[Bren]

My mate had a D plate mk 3 granada - it was rotten - patched everywhere.

 

Even the metal around the rear washer bottle (hidden in o/s quarter panel) had gone.

 

Apparently the car belonged to P&O and spent most of it's time at ports - it had lived its life by the sea.

 

I am very wary now about buying stuff from coastal locations, especially if it is knocking on a bit.

[cort16]

Those Micras are bad for front crossmembers. That must have sent 1000's of them to the bridge to replace it (properly) you need to drill out spot welds etc.

 

The worst one I've seen recently belongs to one of the customers of my landlord. It's a Daihatsu fourtrak on about a K reg I think.  On the outside it looks mint. He had loads of paint and body work done on it BUT under the plastic body kit there's just nothing but fibre glass, fresh air and expanding foam. The creeping rust line is about 3 inches below the body kit at present but sooner or later it's going go over and that'd be that. 

 

With more modern stuff with decent rust protection it seems to be packed dirt or poor previous repairs that cause rot. My mate does bodywork and everytime he brings one in with fucked arches he pulls about 3 kilos of dirt from behind arch before he starts or points out a previous shit repair.

[Lord Sterling]

One of the most consistently rot-prone cars I see is the Mk1 Nissan Almera. Here is one photographed by Alan Gold (GoldScotland71) on Flickr:

 

[cort16]

I think one of the most famous or infamous rusty shite heaps is Miss Belvedere. That's the Plymouth Belvedere they buried in a time capsule in 1957 to be opened in 2007.

 

mint

 

 

What they didnt know what that at some time around 20 years ago some hapless workmen cracked a drain nearby which flooded the concrete casket it was sitting in.

Even though the covered it and rust protected it sitting for 20 years in shitey bog water isn't going to have a great effect on the car.

 

Of course they didn't know this so had a big ceremony for pulling it out the ground but....

 

 

Since then some company that has a some rust prevention treatment have basically had it in a bath of this stuff with a pump recirculating the stuff over the top for like a year.

Apparently they've stopped the rot but it's totally gone and won't even stand up to being moved now.They say it's the packed in mud that's holding it together.

[Stixy]

 

 

 

 

I read the story of this at the time and seen all the pictures   , but the one pic that struck me the most was the engine pic  as showed they had left the battery on and it was still connected .

 

Still looks better than some of these rusty looking vag products that are the fad of fools these days 

[danthecapriman]

It's probably not mud that's holding it together. It's butt mud!

 

To be honest though, that looks pretty good considering it's been sat submerged in sewage for 20 odd years. I bet a more modern car with its much thinner metal wouldn't last half as well once the coatings started to fail.

 

 

The Almeras do rot aswell! A guy I used to work with had a T plate one. He took the piss out of me for having a rust bucket Capri. Then one day he tried to mot it and it failed on rotten sills. Oh how I laughed at him!

He said it was a twat to weld as the steel is so thin. Which is the problem, once the modern paints/coatings start to fail or get damaged the metal underneath rots away in no time.

It got scrapped a few years later. My Capri is still going so who's the idiot?

[Dick Longbridge]

My neighbour's 06 Transit has the brown shiz appearing along the sills and arches. He's just scraped it through an mot, but has been warned that next mot will involve welding around the arse end. The Transit - embracing 1970s rust-proofing technology (or the lack of it). The best bit is that he recently spent a grand on the fuel pump after it gave up the ghost. His very reason for buying the van was that it was relatively uncomplicated, basic and had a timing chain. Modern dizzles - all crap in one way or another.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

Funny you should mention the micra - my sisters needed the front crossmember welding for MOT.

 

On transits, a neighbour works for BT and usually nips home at lunch in the works Transit if he's working nearby. They are the ones with the plastic workshop body on the rear. The one he had home today was an 07 and the doors and sills looked fucked

[sierraman]

Fiesta mk4. Unusually the arches were good but the main structure was shot. At the last MOT when sill was plated (again...) the inner sill bottom edge was frilly as fuck. Then following a innocuous sounding wet floor, we found upon drying the carpet the floor was like a cullinder and fatally the inner wheel arch/bulkhead was starting to go big time.

 

I don't think fords are any worse than any other car tbh. The mk3 mondeo rots the doors for fun but you won't find many that's had sills plated and floors made of old biscuit tins

[sporty-shite]

 

I am very wary now about buying stuff from small islands that don't have an annual test, especially if it is knocking on a bit.

Yes, Harold, so am I.

[Pete-M]

WIL PAS MOT NO PRBLEm.

[Hendry]

Those Micras are bad for front crossmembers. That must have sent 1000's of them to the bridge to replace it (properly) you need to drill out spot welds etc.

 

The worst one I've seen recently belongs to one of the customers of my landlord. It's a Daihatsu fourtrak on about a K reg I think.  On the outside it looks mint. He had loads of paint and body work done on it BUT under the plastic body kit there's just nothing but fibre glass, fresh air and expanding foam. The creeping rust line is about 3 inches below the body kit at present but sooner or later it's going go over and that'd be that. 

 

With more modern stuff with decent rust protection it seems to be packed dirt or poor previous repairs that cause rot. My mate does bodywork and everytime he brings one in with fucked arches he pulls about 3 kilos of dirt from behind arch before he starts or points out a previous shit repair.

I pulled the genuine front tailored mudguards off my Astra H and because they were shaped but hollow inside rather than flaps they had collected a load of dirt and weighed about the same as a bag of sugar each so about a kilo, tipped it out into quite a sizeable pile, sooner or later that wouldve fucked the front arches with rust.

[Bren]

One of the most consistently rot-prone cars I see is the Mk1 Nissan Almera. Here is one photographed by Alan Gold (GoldScotland71) on Flickr:

Something oddly alluring about that almera - I would not be ashamed to own it.

[Richard]

There's no shame in a car being in that state after nearly 20 years. Some of the 1970s cars being discussed here would have been much worse after five years.

[New POD]

I have owned a number of mk2 cavaliers, which are not particularly prone to rust apart from rear arches and back end of the sills. BUt based on ownership of 2 built in the UK and 2 built in Anterwerp, I can safely say that the UK built ones were more rusty.

[cort16]

I was selling that Almera I'd say it was in "honest" condition.

[sierraman]

Or perhaps average condition for age? On a 1979 talbot horizon...

[Taff]

Dad's FE Victor. Left the showroom sometime in 1976, & scrapped due to galloping rust everywhere before I could learn to drive in it in 1982. 

 

I had a couple of Cresta's (PA, PC & Viscounts) and had heard that the Vauxhall factory had a production line that moved outdoors between two buildings. If a car was outside when the knock-off hooter sounded, it stayed outside until the following morning. Anyone else heard that?

 

One of my Viscounts had a moody-looking sill, so I got out the grinder and started cutting. Imagine my surprise when the disc bit into the concrete below and the torque reaction of the grinder I was holding flung me face-first into the passenger door.

[Bren]

I had a couple of Cresta's (PA, PC & Viscounts) and had heard that the Vauxhall factory had a production line that moved outdoors between two buildings. If a car was outside when the knock-off hooter sounded, it stayed outside until the following morning. Anyone else heard that?

 

One of my Viscounts had a moody-looking sill, so I got out the grinder and started cutting. Imagine my surprise when the disc bit into the concrete below and the torque reaction of the grinder I was holding flung me face-first into the passenger door.

My dad had an fe victor that was very solid at ten years old until some myopic twat in a skoda drove into the back of it.

 

My dad could'nt find his insurance docs - the halfwit got the police involved - mr plod said that they may do him for driving without due care seen as he had gotten them involved.

[Bren]

I remember a work colleague had a C plate fiesta 1400 S - the inner wings looked like arcing up blocks they had been welded so much.

 

It got finished by a delivery wagon - colleague was nearly in tears. I told him the driver had done him a favour.

[Volksy]

A friends mums D plate Fiesta had galloping rot very early on. The nobble bit which held the boot gas struts onto the interior of the tailgate even rotted off. 

 

Mind you my mate had a very very rotten '64 type 3 VW, the desirable 1500 S, it got to the point where if you lifted the door when open, the whole side of the car would pull away from the floorpan. 

[cort16]

Anyone remember this crock from the ebay tat thread?

 

 

 

It turns out it made £130,000 at auction

 

http://www.classicandsportscar.com/blogs/james-elliott/paying-for-patina-is-one-thing-but-shelling-out-for-rust-is-another

 

There's more gory pictures of it up on a ramp here. Needless to say it's utterly fucked and will probably be what 100 grand or something spent on it to get it up to scratch?

Although seeing the prices of them shooting up (times have changed from it's not a proper Ferrari eh?) maybe it would be a worthwhile project for someone with deep pockets.

 

https://www.silverstoneauctions.com/1973-ferrari-dino-barn-find

[PhilA]

We had a mk1 1.1L Fez (OHF 979S) that by 1987 we had traded in, the front headlights were held in with coathangers.. according to Doovla it was last on the road til 92 so someone either had a blind MoT man or actually fixed it.

 

That was replaced with a B reg mk2 Fez (B876 DUH) which was absolutely immaculate apart from the driver's side door, that rotted out along the scraper, the bottom edge had gone. Guessing the body was mostly German, don't remember the VIN. Some old git reversed into it and caved it properly in. Replaced it with a nicely matched up new door ordered from Spain. It was waxoyled religiously, the insides of the arches cleaned, brushed, rinsed every week. Car was stored outside but looked lovely. Sold it to a pleasant couple for their daughter to learn to drive in in, she wrapped the thing around another car two weeks later. Sad.

 

My FD Victor was.. quite holey. But, Victor. Spent money each year getting various bits of it replaced. That was the norm.

 

--Phil