Starting My Mini Up
Posted 12 July 2020 - 02:06 PM
Hello All.
Looking for some advice on getting my classic mini shell either acid dipped or blasted.
I understand that there are pros of cons for using each but am looking for the services near the Bromley (kent) area.
My mini needs some TLC and i think it will be easier to strip all the paint/body filler/ rust off first so i can tell exactly which parts need replacing and which parts can be salvaged.
Any Help would be greatly appricated.
Regards
Dave
One Carb Or Two?
Posted 12 July 2020 - 02:22 PM
Might be worth asking Russ at Croydon Minis.
Moved Into The Garage
Posted 12 July 2020 - 02:52 PM
dont acid dip. it stays in the seams and rots the acr from the inside.
blasting with the correct medium by people who have done Minis before is good. get them to prime it straight after though.
Speeding Along Now
Posted 12 July 2020 - 08:22 PM
I recently had a shell glass bead blasted. It did a good job and was not too aggressive leaving a reasonable surface to paint. The only thing was the blast media seemed to keep appearing out of the seams and cavities for weeks every time the body was moved or worked on.
As regards painting do not use a self etch primer as the acid in the paint can affect the adhesion of whatever you put on top of it. Use a good epoxy primer instead.
One Carb Or Two?
Posted 13 July 2020 - 07:45 PM
I've just had a MK2 Jaguar bodyshell done (shell only not doors, boot or bonnet) and there are a few things to consider:
Strip off all the underseal, sound deadening and seam sealer before sending it for blasting as they will struggle to get this off and it will increase the cost and possibly damage from distortion.
Paint strip the large outside panels, in particular the roof and just get them to blast around the edges and any rust spots to avoid distortion.
If you are going to replace any panels like the sills cut them off (assuming the car is reasonably solid) so they can blast inside. If you know its going to need wings, a panels etc. remove them first before having it blasted as there is no point paying to blast panels you know are going to be replaced and it also makes it easier to get to the inner wings etc.
Check what they are going to blast if with, if they use steel then you have to get it out of the box sections as it will rust, if its something like glass its less critical (although you do still want to get as much of it out as possible).
Think about how you will move the shell in bare metal to somewhere that it can be primed (if the blasters can't do this), guaranteed it will rain on the day you bring it home so have a plan as you don't want it to get wet once blasted.
Prime the shell with an epoxy primer as soon as you can.
Speeding Along Now
Posted 14 July 2020 - 03:24 PM
I have had my shell acid dipped.
Quite happy with the result. It's been washed off with 97%water and 3% phosphatic acid to prevent rust.
Now it's been nearly a year since I collected it back, doing the welding it deserves.
After the welding is done it will go in a second bath to clean the little surface rust which is building at the moment, rinced and then sent to e-coat. From then I will do the classic preparation for painting.
You can watch my project to have an idea how it does look.
I have seen a garage restoring old Citroens (DS, 2CV) doing that. They take care of the cars after restoration, and after 5 or 10 years there is no sign of rust.
On the plus side:
- no hassle removing sound deadening, stonechip, paint...
- very clean work, every area is reached. Think about all the enclosed areas like rear valance corners, roof inner gutters, A/B posts.
- from what I could see, the acid was quite intrusive in the seams, so was the cleaning too. All seams I separated were OK.
- E-coat will also intrude everywhere on the shell.
On the negatives:
- it's not really clear how it will look like in 20 years. But every process has its negative points. By sandblasting it's not easy to remove all the sand afterwards, which is going easily wet.
- cost. I think about 5000€ for acid 1 / acid 2 / e-coat. Bu I do not want to sell the car after that.
It's not easy to chose which method, as the cars were never meant to be restored after 30 years...
Gilles
One Carb Or Two?
Posted 15 July 2020 - 08:19 AM
The thing is that dipping is (in theory) good for cars with a lot of enclosed box sections (like a MK2 Jag) whereas the mini doesn't really have that many enclosed sections,.
Personally i'm not a fan of dipping as I have seen three cars that have had this done and the results have been terrible after a few years, blasting is also much cheaper but carries with it a risk of distortion if not done correctly.
For example I had a quote of £2000 to dip my MK2 jag shell (just for comparison) and it cost £650 to blast it. Most of the box sections have been opened up as part of the previous welding and the remainder will be as part of the final repairs so even if I thought dipping was a good idea it doesn't stack up on paper.
If you look at the photos from the Practical Classics MK2 jag restoration you can see that they had the car dipped and when they cut the sills off they still appear to be full of lose flaky crusty rust so i'm not overly convinced by the process.
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