Tuesday 27 November 2007

Surely the answer is to buy a car that won't rust

I've experienced a love hate relationship with corrosion. After watching my first two cars descend from the smart, shiny examples I thought I'd bought into festering, bubbling, crusty messes, I decided to learn to weld so that I'd never be beaten by rust again. So the next thing that happened was that I discovered how easily welding up a rusty classic can take over your life.

Then inspiration - buy a car that won't rust. So I did, a TVR Taimar. Its glassfibre bodywork was as blemish-free as the day it was built in 1979, so I set off on a 12-month journey free of corrosion stress. Well that's what I believed until I was underneath it one day replacing the front disc brakes. Up in a dark recess of the tubular chassis was an extra-dark recess, one that I could poke a couple of fingers through. It was the start of a process that would eat up nine months of my spare time.

Since then I've learnt to accept a little rust here and there as an inevitable part of the classic-owning experience. After all, it has to be better than the alternative - hiding my cars away in the garage and only using them on the few reliably dry days we're granted each year on this soggy little island.

2 comments:

David Kohl said...

Bikes aren't any better! The only thing I do is to coat them in ACF-50 anti-corrosion,which works really well, and then hope and pray...

Alan Moore said...

Hi phil,

I reckon you should get a blog roll going.

On a global basis there are going to be some serious dudes who will want to discuss oxidisation.

Ot however one spells it. :-)

Cheers

Alan