westy

Couple of things I forgot to mention haha When you go to ad the sodium bicarbonate to the water and citric acid solution you’re going to get quite the science project volcano so make sure you’ve got plenty of room in the container for it to bubble up so as it doesn’t overflow. Ad it slowly. Make a concentrate with about half the water then top up with water to get to the right volume. Ad the dishwash liquid last. If it overflows onto concrete rinse it quickish. Don’t have to panic but it will etch it if left. As I found out. Wear gloves cause even though it’s non toxic it stings like a bastard if you’ve got any cuts. As I found out. It strips zinc by the looks so any galvanising will go. If there’s rust under any paint it seems to get behind it and lifts the paint off. Can come out a little black but a couple of minutes with the wire wheel and it’s gleaming. The black is darker there then irl.

This will explain it much better than I could You can get everything you need from somewhere like this https://www.purenature.co.nz/products/citric-acid?variant=9397996421164&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22682499981&gbraid=0AAAAADrhhYvMZ7UxlDEMJTxxpOemdb1mi&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_ejisP2AlQMVc4C5BR0eOiG6EAQYASABEgIWl_D_BwE Apparently you can make a jelly using xanthan gum so it can be used on the car itself which I might have a crack at next.

Probably not too different from most other cars of the seventies? This one must have been sitting in sand in a river or beach judging by the amount of it coming out of the sills and the way it’s rusted from the inside out.

Well bugger me. 2 days and it’s pretty much spotless.

So while that brews I can get on with other stuff like, oh I dunno, patching more rust

Yeah that’s not great. This one’s not perfect but it’s a shitload better Easily the most tedious task in all this is getting the rust off pieces I want to use. All the abrasive type methods soak up hours on end and I don’t have hours on end so I’m running a chemistry experiment with the citric acid and sodium bicarbonate solution that seems to be the current hotness. Probably should have used something a bit more hardy as a liner but yeah. 1 day in and it’s looking promising

Seems I’m a sucker for 70s jap coupes. Probably all 70s coupes really but I like the size of the jap ones.

Next is the sill. Here’s a glimpse of the horrors awaiting. Spent the afternoon removing the sill from the other car which looks promising but that’s it for this weekend.

Weld it in Bit of work towards the front of the opening which I didn’t get a pic of except of the patch I had to make 4 times ffs First cause I made it in 1mm instead of 1.2. Second cause I made it inside out. Third cause it was 5mm too short. Forth to get it right. Sheesh.

Hmm well this bit’s pretty bad But before that I need to attend to this One of the reasons I took the roof off. Again from the other car. Clean ‘er up

If it was a white XB wagon (cool but not quite as much as the XY) then it could have easily been my rust repairs from the 90s. I still miss that thing.

Ta. I’ll keep it in mind. But like I say I’m a long way away from even thinking too much about it.

Huh. Well that ain’t so bad. That bit shouldn’t be bent over but

To be fair you could spend that and a lot more on any engine.

Rain!! I’m not working in that. To the shed. Couple of small rust repairs and a whole lot of clean up and it’s in epoxy.