Ace flat alluminium panels - painted or left natural

[James Eastwood]

I have the floors and some of the inner wheel arch panels off BE475, whilst the car has gone to Nick Finburgh at Classic Autos for some body corrections.

All these panel are well worn, but are original Thames Ditton parts and will be cleaned up and refitted to the car. I've taken the underseal off the wheel sides of the arches, using a blow torch to soften, then a scraper. This then appears to leave some sort of paint, but it's hard to see exactly.

Can people help me with;
1) the original finish of the wheel side of inner wheel arches and underside of floors, when cars left the factory?

2) If surfaces were left bare, what is the best way to stop then slowly corroding? I've heard of folks polishing, then rubbing in WD40, but perhaps there are better methods nowadays?

3) Can anyone recommend a product which replicates the square section foam seal that fitted onto the edges of panel to seal then.

Many thanks,
James

[James Eastwood]

Anyone?

[Klassik Metall]

The three unrestored original cars that I've worked on had bitumen based underseal on the wheel side of the front wheel boxes.
All of the floors boot included were just bare ali. I've observed that many restored cars seem to have no coating on the front wheel boxes
so can only assume that they never see any rain or salt.

When restoring these cars I coat the under wing areas with an epoxy primmer, either by spray gun or with a small foam roller.
I then spray these areas with a modern synthetic stonechip/underseal, I use black Teroson Terotex 3000.

As for the floors, I just mist coat them in ACF-50 or a light anti corrosion wax from an aerosol can.
I find this is easy to clean off & renew if it gets very dirty, it also offers a good level of corrosion resistance.
I also use the same spray along the inner sill tube area.

For the inner panel edge seal I use 16mm square section closed cell EPDM foam strip. This is the closest thing that I've been able to find to the original sealing material.
I slit the square profile half way through with a small split steel jig with a 16x16mm square through hole. The slit is cut by a box cutter blade clamped in a recess
between the two halves of the jig. I glue the seal in place with UHU all purpose adhesive which seems to hold up well & doesn't melt the foam strip.

Hope the above helps & good luck with your restoration, Luke.

[James Eastwood]

Luke,

This is great detail and very helpful. I've found all those products you've mentioned.

Interesting to note that the original cars had a black underseal on the inside of the wheel arches, when as you say so many cars just now have a bare metal finish, particularly the cars prepared for competion. It looks good (in my opinion) to see through past the tyre to the alluminium, but it's not how they left the factory and if you fancy a quick spin on a dry winter's day, then go through a salty puddle, the ally will react immediately unless you hose off, and if you think you need to hose the car off then you probably never going to get it out!

Thanks again,

James

[gtjoey]

James On my Aceca , Heres what Im doing.
Simple green spray
Then Brillo
Then scotch bright pad then wipe down.
All my underside pans were none painted except up front near the wheels.
Hope this helps, I love the AC CLUB but the website and participation is tough.
Good luck!
GTJOEY1314

[Robin A Woolmer]

One of the treatments i do is to anodise the aluminium before painting or further treatment, it is a bit laborious but worthwhile!
Robin

[James Eastwood]

Thanks both for your input. I'm probably getting closer to the idea of a bare finish, becuase it just looks so nice, particularly with older panels. Then one can always add a coating at a later date.

It has been incredibly hard work though, first I have had to use a blow torch to warm the old under-seal, to scrape it off. Then I've used petrol to get the remainder off. What is then left in parts has in some area been painted so I progress on to a paint stripper. After which I can be still left with a layer of corrosion which needs to be wet sanded off, or in the very worse cases disk sanded off. The plan is to then fine sand panels with 1000 grade and where they're cokpit interior surfaces to use 2500 grade and possibly a polish, we will see what time permits.

[AK1161]

We have used Scotchbrite with some oil and they look great and period.
Have a good weekend one and all.
Luke

[dkp_cobra]

That looks really nice.  :)