Keeping rust worm at bay.

with all the aluminium parts on the car, as informed by our resident bracketeer, its pity the front wings are not aluminium also. I'm not sure if it would save much weight as they would likely have to be a bit thicker.

great if the rear arch was too, but as its a welded together structure it would mean the whole car would end up being alumiunium.

bracketeer, can you weld aluminium and steel together?

 

wow im shocked to see the rust in those pics and what got me is the rust going all the way down to the sills and its all brown when i bought my red copen i just had a small bubble on the drivers rear arch similar to yours but abit smaller over then that the rest of the copen is perfect and that now is sorted but bloody hell i mean ive only ever seen my own copen up close and personal because these cars are rare so thats why its a shock to see the rust in detail like that

 

Yep i must admit the rust is now very bad, however i still feel that the repairs that i had done were not the best, so i kind of take responsibility for the state it's in because i didn't find a good repair shop:-((
REMEMBER TO " CHECK THOSE CORNER'S "

 

I don't know who this bracketeer is but I can answer that question.
You cant weld aluminium to a ferrous metal like mild steel. You can weld stainless steel to mlld steel without any bother but not a none ferrous metal like aluminium.
Aluminium is a bugger to both weld and paint, plus it is a pricey metal and those are the reasons why mainstream cars are not made from it.

 

Hi all, went to see how my car was getting on last tuesday...... OMG it does look sorry for itself.
I took some photo's to show you all, i will post them soon......
Remember "CHECK THOSE CORNER'S"

 

New picture's

Here they are :-(( she really looks bad :-((

 

I think that could be the go to look. We've had de-seamed, de-badged, de-sanded boot and de-light, now we have de-winged!
reduced weight, less polishing and a frog-eye look.

 

i bet there's someone out there who could make aluminium replacements for the existing parts - not cheap but even so.....

 

might even be cheap in carbon fibre......lighter and no corrosion to worry about.

 

I wonder why the panel beater has marked up those areas on the front lip of the bonnet? That's the areas that my bonnet was corroding I wonder if corrosion is the reason, hard to see on the picture. Thankfully mine now Has a new bonnet, a snip at £211 from SG Petch. I couldnt believe how inexpensive the bonnet was, I though it would be three times that.

 

That's correct that's were i have corrosion!!!

 

Update!!

Spoke to my restorer andy on tuesday, he informed me that the rear quater panels are now off!! and would take some photo's for me as i could not get round to have a look.. we got talking about the start of the rebuild and what he was going to do regarding the rear quaters and protecting against rust. He's going to paint the inner wing and the inner lip of the rear quater panels, mount the quater panels and seal them. The idea being that there is a layer of paint either side of the sealent, as andy said " it appears that daihatsu didn't bother doing that!!".More pics to follow.
Remember " check those corner's "

 

The face of a flasher as he whips his Mac open.

 

Modern cars shouldn't rust or in the case of the bonnet corrode to the extent that Copens do. Daihatsu cars are clearly not designed to be used in countries like the UK where we have a lot of salt on our roads in the winter. I'm actually amazed that Daihatsu give such a long rust warranty on the Copen? They probably know that a lot of owners won't keep up the annual inspections and so void their warranty.

 

More photo's













Here's a few more photo's of the ongoing restoration work from Andy.I,ve got a lot more but these kind of give an idea of the work that has gone into this so far

 

Morning all, hope you are all ok.
Quick update on progress........ she's nearly finished all painted look's amazing just a few bit's and bob's to finish off.Quick question do we refit the badges or do we de - badge it? your thought's please

REMEBER " CHECK YOUR CORNER'S "

Will post some picture's when finished............. won't be long now

 

I don't understand de-badging. It's part of the design of the car, and I'm proud of what make my little car is. It finishes it off with a flourish. Leave it on!

 

I like the de-badged look. However on your car Princess, with it's history. I'd stick with originality & fit the badges.

 

Suppose people view their car more as a copen than a daihatsu -