i'm starting classes now, and i will have to pause my build until december. right now i have left the chassis outside for one week covered with a plastic and it developed surface rust all over. (although i guess things dont rust as much here as they do in the UK)

people tell me i should paint the chassis with hammerite so it does not keep on rusting, but the problem is i am far from finishing the welding, and grinding. i need to finish the brackets, gearbox mount, steering mount, and various bits and bobs.

do you reccomend painting the chassis and then filing bits off wherever i need to weld again? i already had bought a 5litre black hammerite paint can but got nowhere near to the paining stage.

is there something else i could use to keep the bare chassis from rusting? maybe grease, but that is far too difficult to take off later...

cheers

we build a lot of chassis so what we do is wash them with a cleaner which leaves a slight coating on them the we just wrap them for storage we get a little surface rust but it clkeans off with a bit of wire wool

and why paint it in hammerite powder coating is not expensive

i believe por (available from frosts) do a weld through primer that would give you some rust protection but even if you don't want to get it powder coated sand/shot blasting is the easiest way to get the chassis cleaned ready for painting when the time comes.

Ned.

ps or wipe the chassis over with some thick oil or grease which should stop teh rust getting through then simply wipe off before welding later on.

[Edited on 21/8/06 by ned]

powder coating will probably happen once EVERYTHING is in the correct place on the chassis... meanwhile, was thinking paint would be a cheap temporary solution...

ned... would WD 40 work? olive oil?

thanks

You can get storage oils/greases - the steel you buy usually comes covered in it. Filthy stuff, but it works!

David

I might be tempted to try weld through primer if it's going to be standing for a while... Though grease/oil might be more convenent as surface prep is not a problem!

[Edited on 21/8/06 by Bluemoon]

Big can of wd40 worked for me.............

I might be remembering wrong, but I'm sure someone told me that primer is hygroscopic and shouldn't be left bare as it actually promotes rust.

I'd have thought a light coating of machine oil would do the trick.

A primer is designed to pick up the first liquid that it comes into contact with - if thats water, then you get rust.

I would use waxoyl, wipe off with parafin when you are ready