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[Webby the Bear]

Most importantly is that a Mac antivibe hammer? Farking awesome piece of kit 👍

[Nick W]

Most importantly is that a Mac antivibe hammer? Farking awesome piece of kit 👍

One of a set of four.


They're OK

[Doctor Gollum]

if the holes are too big to weld plates on I'll platerboard and skim em for ya 

You oppsing bodger!


Tube of Tigerseal, and several coats of schutz.


Followed by a change of owner.....


 

At least I used marine epoxy... And triple layered close woven fabric

[Webby the Bear]

Most importantly is that a Mac antivibe hammer? Farking awesome piece of kit 👍

One of a set of four.


They're OK

Set of four? I was only given one option... 32 ounce if I remember rightly? Not that it matters. Haven’t got a Mac man anymore.

[Migv6 le Frog Fan]

Ok I will bite. Wtf is an anti vibe hammer ? 

[Nick W]

Ok I will bite. Wtf is an anti vibe hammer ? 

They're single piece forged to a shape that reduce vibrations down to the rubber gripped handle.
Nicely balanced, comfortable to use, and reasonably priced.
There's a flat on the top of the head which means they stand upright.


You have to be careful buying stuff from the Mac van, as much of it is readily available from other Stanley group suppliers at much better prices.


I bought the set of 3, not 4.

[Nick W]

Some repairs that are intended to be strong, tidy and ensure the car passes another 3 or 4 MOTs. This is not restoration, and I would have preferred to do some more cutting and welding. But that would have required the removal of the AC pipes, trans cooler lines, steering box and servo which was not viable for this work.


First repair, that is welded all round and attaches the inner wing to the chassis rail:





then the lower repair to join it all together





and around the steering box, I suspect this area will kill the car eventually:










those are both rotated for some reason, and the finished one has seam sealer applied which we also used on the front repair.


The weird hole in NSR footwell that started all this excitement








Finally, some nice tools for Webby to perv over enjoy

[johnnydog]

The weird hole in NSR footwell that started all this excitement

I had the rear carpets up recently to air them due to a water leak in the front. In the outer recess channel in the floor by the inner sill, there was a small plastic cone shaped grommet that protruded about 1/4" from the underside of the floor pan. It was split and had allowed some water ingress which had discoloured the paint but nothing more serious. I cleaned the area up and replaced the plastic grommet with a rubber one which in my mind should be more effective in sealing the hole.
This could have been the cause of this corrosion hole in the floor which unfortunately probably hadn't been caught as early as I managed to with mine.

[Doctor Gollum]

The trouble with the Omega is that it was designed and built down to a budget...

Body plugs, trim clips and framing trims are all attached directly to painted sheet metal with zero barrier protection. Eventually the normal vibrations from even the engine idling, let alone driving and weather causes patches of bare metal to from round ALL the contact points and eventually they rot away.

I'm sure Nick will have checked it, but have I would wager that the grommet on the vertical face at the end of the sill, about 3" right of that patch and hidden behind the wheel arch filler is crusty around the edges.

I defy you to not find evidence of paint damage if you randomly remove one of the plastic ring clips from the bottom edge of the sill cover caused by the movement/vibration... and if it's doing that to a part that can be seen, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what's happening between the sill cover and the floor.

Same where the headlight trims meet the bumper/the window rain channel trims meet the rear quarters or the rear wiper cover plate meets the tailgate (and that has a rubber edge )/where the bumpers and door trims meet panels... etc

Not suggesting that they're anything like rust free, but, as an example, an E39 5 Series will have less corrosion on it than a similar mileage/age/history Omega, and that's almost entirely because they were better designed with almost no uninsulated contact between trim and paint.

Ultimately, the design life expectancy of pretty much any car, especially a budget exec from a mainstream firm, is 100,000 miles and not a minute more, especially with a strong fleet customer base (at the time) buying new cars every 2 years. It didn't even need to be built well enough to have its first state inspection in any market that the Omega was sold in as far as the sales people cared.

Credit where it's due though, it's only really as they passed the 15 year old mark that they are starting to dissolve enough to become serious... just be under no illusion that this has been going on from the second they left Russelheim

[Nick W]

DG,
most of what you listed applies to all cars. They all have holes in the sheetmetal, and thd reasons for them aren't always obvious. Much of the underbody and bits you can't see don't get much paint. Rubbery undercoatings work well, but once penetrated can hold water in, not out. Galvanising and chemical coatings also have their uses.


BUT, they all just slow down the process and this is car is 18 years old. We did have a good poke at the sills and other common areas, which were OK. Damage there would have tilted the decision in a very different way. Much like it did on my own car.


One more thing; this structure is much older than it looks as it's basically Carlton

[VXL V6]

The thing is, everything is repairable depending on how much money you want to spend.

It's when that spend exceeds what you are prepared to spend on an old any car.

As always it's the cost to change and lower overall running costs to balance that out that start to tip the scales.

For me I like older, non-current model cars, especially the more 'exec' class with lot's of toys etc for not a lot of money, which then leads to making decisions about their future regularly.

[Migv6 le Frog Fan]

I found a small area of rust behind the header tank on mine a few days ago. I will cut it out and weld a small patch in there.
Im reasonably confident I dont have any serious issues anywhere else, but after seeing this thread Im going to check everything over again, just to be sure.

[Doctor Gollum]

The Omega does fair quite well, but with hindsight there was alot of work needed whilst it was new to minimise the work that's becoming apparent now... GM obviously felt that recycling the Omega A structure was sufficient to meet the industry standard rather than make it better.

And aside from the expense of servicing the suspension and being a bit on the thirsty side, they do still hold their own. To a point. 

[VXL V6]

The Omega does fair quite well, but with hindsight there was alot of work needed whilst it was new to minimise the work that's becoming apparent now... GM obviously felt that recycling the Omega A structure was sufficient to meet the industry standard rather than make it better.

In fairness though, a lot of platforms are developed and used in slightly modified form for the next model and platform sharing across multiple models being sold alongside each other is massive.

[Doctor Gollum]

You're not wrong. If VAG could work out how to build their 'superccar' ranges on a Golf platform, they would