206 & Gaffer tape

[barefoot]

Two completely unrelated topics here;

 

My mother has decided to give up driving & gave her 51 plate (ordinary but nice) 206 diesel thing to my niece.

Fair play you may think, but the old dodderer filled the car up before the glorious handover - with petrol!

She's had it from new & never done it before.

Not given up driving a moment too soon then.

 

- Niece was recovered to other uncle who has access to serious garage facilities - fuel tank drained, new pump £300 etc

 

 

On a completely different tack;

 

Saw a recent thread, which obviously I can't find where an old boy had covered the bottoms of his doors with gaffer tape

presumably to afford some kind of spectacular additional protection.

 

My question is, I'm in the process of having new cab & sliding door fitted to VW T2, is this a viable thing to do?

The doors will be well filled with copious amounts of new paint (having been stripped to bare metal by a local pine stripper

or are brand new) and will be filled with copious amounts of waxoil. But is the gaffer tape on the bottoms a good thing to do?

Or will I just peel it off along with half of the door in a decade?

 

This is a serious long term question, the van is 30 odd years old & I'm planning that it will see me out.

[Richard]

I thought gaffer tape was for covering holes.

[catsinthewelder]

I think that covering the door bottoms with gaffa tape is generally the preserve of those whose doors are already at the disintegration stage ( like my T2). Rusty sharp edges being an MOT no no and all

[dollywobbler]

Gaffer tape just tends to unravel and fall apart in extended use for body repairs. Or at least, that's what happened to my Dyane many years ago...

[CreepingJesus]

Gaffer tape just tends to unravel and fall apart in extended use for body repairs. Or at least, that's what happened to my Dyane many years ago...

 

This. I've used gaffer tape of various brands, for a wide variety of purposes over the years. For all its' remarkable properties, it cannot cope with water for long. Especially when that water's fired at it by weather.

Having said that, I knew someone whose Mondeo was exactly the same colour as silver Duck tape. So rather than buy new bumpers, he just replaced the tape when it got scabby!

[autofive]

i used aluminium tape to cover a missing aerial on the wing of a mk2 Granada -worked a treat, never peeled or leaked and when removed (every three months or so) the rusty hole had not got any bigger

[Richard]

My mother once made most of a Viva wing using only masking tape (which we'd found floating down the stream in our back garden), Bostik and gold paint. It was quite convincing by 1970s standards.

[dollywobbler]

I've known people carry out some pretty large 'repairs' with aluminium tape! It does seem to last longer and is more durable.

[HereHareHere]

Saw a recent thread, which obviously I can't find where an old boy had covered the bottoms of his doors with gaffer tape

presumably to afford some kind of spectacular additional protection.

 

My question is, I'm in the process of having new cab & sliding door fitted to VW T2, is this a viable thing to do?

The doors will be well filled with copious amounts of new paint (having been stripped to bare metal by a local pine stripper

or are brand new) and will be filled with copious amounts of waxoil. But is the gaffer tape on the bottoms a good thing to do?

Or will I just peel it off along with half of the door in a decade?

 

This is a serious long term question, the van is 30 odd years old & I'm planning that it will see me out.

Yus, as Tayne said it was my (STILL UNSOLD) Maestro what had all gaffer tape on. Tops of both door sills covered in several layers of it.

 

The bloke I bought it off said it had been put there by the previous owner-driver-giffer, as a protective measure. Rather than risk yanking it off along with the paint, he'd actually added further layers himself.

 

I wondered if in some haunted "Christine" type way, ownership of this Maestro would compel me in turn to apply several rolls of my own, in a dead-eyed, drooling trance during the small hours. Instead I consulted the internet and quickly established that gaffer tape can be safely and swiftly removed with the help of a hairdryer, and did so.

 

Having said that, the sill-tops were absolutely pristine when I peeled the last layer off. It was an exciting moment: exactly how Howard Carter must have felt on blowing the ancient sand from Tutankhamun's gleaming death-mask.

 

So I say - DO IT!

[seth]

it had been put there by the previous owner-driver-giffer, as a protective measure.

 

That reminded me that the Hillman was so afflicted when I got it. I think this lot was there to try and stop water getting in the front footwell. Didn't work though as it was actually coming in through the bodged A post/sill/bottom of wing "repairs" that had been done.

 

[RobT]

I've used gaffer tape to seal up the leaky sunroof on my recently acquired Volvo 740, and so far it has withstood heavy rain on a long motorway trip. If you do a neat job and push it down thoroughly, and layer it up at the joins, I've found it to be quite effective in the past (but it does require replacement once a bit of weathering has happened and it loses it's stickiness). Just consider it a service item. Change oil, replace gaffer etc

[andrew e]

Is it worth just galvinising them? There Not Brazilian doors are they... they dont have the best corrosion properties.