Thank you for your advice gentlemen. I shall bear it in mind. This car (2.6CDX manual saloon) is 17 years old and does not owe me much. All my Omegas are now in need of pre-MOT attention, hence my wish to master MIG welding. My 2 best bodied cars are the oldest - a 1999 2.5 pfl estate that spent some years in Portugal, and a 2000 fl estate, ex ajsphead, which again is strangely little rusty. My other 4 Omegas are saloons. Do other members find estates less rust prone than saloons? My great worry is rear shock absorber mountings, and I know they are different on saloons and estates.
I think they are all getting pretty rusty now. The difference is the owners who know about it and those who don't. I've just finished the rear turrets on mine. The steel is thick and a very hard formulation as you'd expect so there's a bit of leeway. It took a mixture of polycarbide disc in the angle grinder, flap wheel in the drill, various stone grinding wheels in the drill, dremel with flexi wand and 2 doses of de-oxidising compound, about 3 hours work in each turret before I was satisfied they were good enough for covering. Good opportunity to change the rear (tired) dampers too.
Do I understand you removed all the surface rust from the inside of each turret, applied anti rust compound, and repainted?
Put simply yes. However removing the surface rust is not really a fair description. Basically if it's black or brown grind it out leaving nothing but shiny metal. Using a grinding disc in an angle grinder is far too clumsy and removes too much good metal so you have to get a real arsenal of bits together and that's where the dremel comes in, and most of the time is taken. I use a de-oxidising compound formulated for industrial use to convert any black specks that are then getting too tricky to grind out and don't apply rust converter until I cannot see any more black bits. Sometimes the pits you leave in the metal are quite deep so you can then pulse weld and grind them level again.
The rust converter I use is also a good primer, followed by 2 pack epoxy in 1 or 2 coats depending on where it is, stonechip over that then Schutz over that. If it's a cavity, wax inject it as well. If you have to weld in new metal you can drill a hole in it to allow for injecting then close with a suitable grommet. I believe in only doing a job once, particularly if it's a filthy one.
