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[terry paget]

Y342 has a rusty wheel arch, which last year I made a mess of repairing. Is there any way short of welding in a new section that I could make a more permanent repair? I wonder because this Omega, unlike others in my fleet, is running well and not terminally rusty.

[Doctor Gollum]

Have you removed the sill cover and wheel arch liner?

[Nick W]

No.


But an Omega arch repair is not a difficult part to make or fit using simple tools.
But you will have to paint the entire panel to make it look acceptable, which is where the difficulty and cost comes in.


And as Al wrote, pull the sill end cap, wheel arch liner and bumper end for a proper look. You'll find a lot more grot under each of them.

[Tick Tock]

Y342 has a rusty wheel arch, which last year I made a mess of repairing. Is there any way short of welding in a new section that I could make a more permanent repair? I wonder because this Omega, unlike others in my fleet, is running well and not terminally rusty.

Oh dear, that doesn't look good. What makes you think the car is not terminally rusty? If the rear wheel arch is as bad as that, then no doubt the sills aren't far behind, and you've not even mentioned the front chassis rails (not just in the front wheel arch above the subframe, but also under the radiator areas).

As already mentioned, rear wheel arch repairs are very doable, but would you want to spend a lot of time and effort sorting that out when the front of the car is probably crumbling away also, from the inside out? I'd recommend a proper assessment of the whole car including under the windscreen before embarking on wheel arches.

[terry paget]

Have you removed the sill cover and wheel arch liner?

Now you mention it, I did so last year, and had my friendly welder repair it.
I will investigate the other side, and maybe the front too, as Tick Tock advises. This car is a lovely drive, and I want to keep it.

 

[b4ndit]

just repaired mine and behind the rear bumper was a mess along with the inner wheel arch but all good now

[terry paget]

Thanks for the advice Tick Tock and b4ndit. I shall bear it in mind and investigate further. Stand by for further pics.

[ajsphead]

Outer arch repairs are very simple, just depends on how much has rotted passed the crease that forms the spot welded flange. Inner arch is not much more difficult, it just requires lots of card for templates and plenty of patience.

[terry paget]

Gentlemen, here are pics of my 2.6 manual CDX saloon. It is 18 years old, drives well, and I should like to keep it on the road for  a couple more years, but not at any price. Here are the rusty bits, tell me what you think.
Last year I got my ace welder to repair the nearside cill, and it passed its MOT test. Here is the right hand cill, and the front chassis.
RH rear cill end

RH rear jacking point with crack in cill

RH cill, looking good to me

RH front jacking point

RH wheel arch

Left wishbone and chassis

Left hand front chassis corner

Right hand chassis corner

Right hand chassis corner

Right hand wishbone and chassis

Thank you for looking. It's an old car, but hopefully with a little more life in it!

[Doctor Gollum]

You're confusing the subframe with the chassis...

Regardless, that right hand sill needs work at both ends...

[dave the builder]

if you want another couple of years....
any rust you can poke through needs welding
all the other rust needs treating with rust remedy or cure-rust  and all undersealed
would help if you squirted the insides of sills and chassis legs etc with supertrol or chainsaw bar and chain oil or similar thick oil (but it will leak out for a week or so )
Opel did a p155 poor job of rust prevention on these 

[terry paget]

You're confusing the subframe with the chassis...

Regardless, that right hand sill needs work at both ends...

So is the chassis the rectangular beams running from rear to front? They seem to disappear at the front.

I agree work is needed on the cill, but the left hand cill was much worse.

Thanks for the quick response.

It does not look too bad, does it?

[ronnyd]

Most cars have body shells these days Terry but to some they are still called a chassis. I,m sure someone can explain it much better than i can.

[Tick Tock]

Hi Terry, the following pics show just a couple of places worth checking out on your car, and can't really be seen from underneath. The extreme front of the chassis rails on both sides (just under where the front bumper crash bar is fitted) can rot away without you even noticing it. The picture shows the front bumper and crash bar removed to give you an idea where to look, and this only takes a few minutes by removing the headlight unit (3 screws) and looking down.

I haven't yet seen an omega where corrosion hasn't started in these areas, some just suffering from surface rust in and around the crash bar fixings. One recent example, I managed to pull away big chunks of chassis material by hand. Also check under the lower windscreen rubber. If the rubber strip has been bonded to the bottom of the screen, the chances are it may still be alright, but where the strip has just been pushed on, water will go under and around the bottom of the screen and rot the lower frame away..... and also enter the engine bay.

[VXL V6]

You're confusing the subframe with the chassis...

Regardless, that right hand sill needs work at both ends...

So is the chassis the rectangular beams running from rear to front? They seem to disappear at the front.

I agree work is needed on the cill, but the left hand cill was much worse.

Thanks for the quick response.

It does not look too bad, does it?

Looking at those pictures it looks repairable to me. If you like the car and are prepared to spend the money to get it sorted then why not?

The outer sills can be replaced with pattern items as you know or you could cut out and patch as required, the front inner wing to chassis rail and engine subframe mount looks a heck of a lot better than a lot i've seen but would need grinding away to see the extent of the corrosion.

The difficulty is the arch repair (As other people have said) as per your subject title - you can buy arch repair panels from Carz2 but the real problem is paint match... Silver seems to be a problem to match properly, even swapping doors etc i've discovered that different Z157 panels sometimes don't match, I guess it depends if a car has sat outside in the sun all its life etc. 

Ultimately, we are all in the same boat now and having to work with what we have because the ability to find a rust free Omega for sale has long gone.