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Defeating the red peril
Page 83
Page 84
Page 86
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Jo need to despair about increasing risks of rusting; here are many remedies and preventives available.
HE USE OF SALT for de-icing roads has icreased by 1000 per cent in 10 years in Iritain, and this factor alone may explain (by there is such concentrated interest )(lay in the subject of rust prevention in chicks. The effect of corrosion on vehicles' !lances of passing the DoE annual test is lso becoming more significant. While xaminers take great trouble over steering, Takes and chassis condition they tend to ike a milder view of cab or body corrosion /here it is obviously not affecting a tructural member -but with the icreasing use of road salt, and a general ightening of standards, the time is pproaching when, say, a five-year-old ehicle may have to have its steel cab placed or very extensively repaired to get • through the test.
Designers of vehicles can help fight the orrosion problem by building in as few areas as possible where moisture can lie and thus create a corrosion trap. This is not easy to do with steel structures such as van bodies or cabs because box members and double skins often have to be used to give rigidity although they are well-known problem areas.
The metal must be bare before any corrosion can take place and of course all metal is painted for this reason. Vehicles builders have spent enormous sums of money on developing painting processes and it would be very difficult if not possible to get further improvements in this direction without greatly increased cost.
What is the operator to do, then? He buys new vehicles — trades and vans — painted to a very good specification by the manufacturer, in some case undersealed as well. But he has to meet schedules all year round and often has to run over salt-laden trunk roads and before long finds his new vehicle rusting before his eyes.
An answer to this problem does exist — for a comparatively small outlay the vehicle can be treated with an anti-corrosion agent and the operator can obtain a guarantee that his vehicle will not rust during an agreed period.
Easily applied and well-proven anticorrosion treatments have been developed in Sweden and North America and are, as well as some wholly British ones, readily available throughout the UK.
Huco GML Ltd, 38 Market Place, Chippenham, Wiltshire, is the sole concessionaire in the UK of the Swedish Astra-Dinol AB company's Dinitrol vehicle rust-proofing system.
The Swedish company's experience of rust-proofing goes back to 1952 when Sven Laurin, the chief engineer of the Swedish Automobile Association, under took rust-proofing exercises on cars.
The development work which Laurin did in establishing rust-proofing solutions and the mist-spray technique of applying it to the inside of closed box sections was finalized and introduced to the public as the ML method in 1960. The ML method is now recognized as a standard treatment for rust protection; ML is an abbreviation of Motormannens Riksforbund (the Swedish Automobile Association) and Sven Laurin, the originator.
The basic system of drilling holes in all closed box sections and double panels and applying a petroleum-based liquid to the inside of the metal has proved to be the right one. Cars first treated 20 years ago and retreated at three-year intervals are still running and available for inspection in Sweden. Perhaps a better commercial tribute to the success of the system is that all the systems to have been developed since use essentially the same ideas.
Ziebart, an American company, which now has affiliated companies offering its rust-proofing services in the UK and Europe, also started in business in 1952. As the various systems offered use much the same technique, economic considerations — how far it is to the nearest rust-proofing station or how long the vehicle will be off the road — may prove more important than the name of any one system. Ultimately, the success of any treatment depends on the conscientiousness of the man doing the job, because for the chemicals to work properly they have to be applied properly and that needs a responsible operator.
To achieve the most foolproof check on the operator and at the same produce a repeatable result Huco GML issues its
service points with a set of check cards for each make and type of model showing all the areas which need attention. These include, for example, the box sections of sill members and door pillars, and double-skinned areas such as those where a reinforcement panel mates to a main body, and all joints. One of the set of cards shows clearly the location of all holes which either exist in the body or have to be drilled by the operator and those which have to be plugged after treatment.
Reference to the charts of a Bedford CF van and a Scania LB 80 cab reproduced here will show the extent of detail involved.
The holes which have to be drilled are usually *in. to -lin. diameter and though large enough to allow the nozzle of the spray gun to pass through are not large enough to affect the strength of the structure. Holes which are drilled in areas where they can be seen or where they are open to water are sealed with an airtight plastic plug.
The solution is sprayed into box sections and forms a flexible film which does not crack at low temperatures or when shaken by hard road surfaces. Because it spreads evenly and penetrates into joints and displaces water vapour which may already exist on the metal, it completely excludes the acid-contaminated air and water and so effectively stops rusting.
Underseals Some operators may have had experience with body undersealmg and possibly been disappointed at the lack of corrosic protection it offered. The ML box sectic treatments described earlier are, of cours completely different to convention. undersealing, but many companii recommend, indeed, some will only honoi their guarantee, if the ML treatment backed up with an additional underse treatment.
The importance of the underseal coat its ability to withstand abrasion caused t the grit and stones thrown up from the rot surface. These coatings have to be thick do the job and until recently the only way get a good thickness at a reasonable co was to use a bitumin base with an asbesO filler. However, in service these coatin: break down sufficiently to expose the en' of some of the asbestos fibres, and befo long the fibre absorbs water and the whc coating becomes permeable so allowii corrosion to continue unnoticed between ti coating and the metal.
Manufacturers of underseal coatin have acknowledged this problem at tackled it by introducing more mode substances without fillers which will dry to hard-gloss finish and will resist chipping, y stay flexible enough to allow for par distortion caused by vibration. One sin coating is produced by the Valvoline Oil C Ltd, of Dock Road, Birkenhead, Cheshii and is known as Tectyl Bodysafe (1216 Valvoline's equivalent product designed f use inside closed box sections is Tectyl N (309A).
It is fair to say that the rust-proofil
systems available today were all developed to suit the car and that most companies although eager to expand their business do not see commercial vehicles as a good, potential market. However, one company that does is Endrust Auto-Truck Rustproofing Co Ltd, of 28, George Street Birmingham B3 1QL. Frank Malin, a director of Endrust, worked in the USA and Canada for six years on vehicle rust-proofing before setting up this company three years ago, and is alive to the needs of the commercial vehicle operator. Among the fleets which have already used Endrust are, RHM Bakeries, East Midlands Electricity Board, Central Electricity Generating Board and London Brick. To suit operator's schedules Endrust will undertake the work overnight or at weekends and has mobile units available to undertake work at operator's base.
The illustrations show the application of the Endrust treatment of a Bedford TK cab for a Midlands local authority. The cost of treatment for this cab is approximately £40 depending on the fleet owner's particular requirements, and this includes a free inspection of the treated areas after two years. Depending on the use of the vehicle, the cab will remain completely rust free for between four and six years and further applications could extend this period. The time taken to treat a vehicle of this type is approximately a working day.
Spartan Autocare (UK) Ltd, of Concord House, Brighton Road, Salfords, Surrey, believes commercial vehicle operators in the UK will become increasingly aware of rust prevention as their counterparts have done in the USA. The company has a mobile rust-proofing unit and one London borough has already had its fleet of refuse collection and other tilt-cab vehicles treated by this method.
The final choice of system and the extent of the treatment specified will depend largely on the individual operator's requirements As the various systems available art basically the same, costs too tend to Ix similar for a given size of vehicle. Hucc GML gives separate prices for separate inside and underbody treatment; the cost oi treating a Bedford CF van, for example, £20 for the Exkote treatment (underbody and £34.75 for the Inkote treatment (innei surfaces, box sections, etc); total £54.75 Treatment of similar-size vehicles such a; the Ford Transit and VW one-ton van cost; the same. Small vans such as the Austit Morris Mini cost £31 total for both Exkotl and Inkote treatments. Other points te consider are distances to the respectivl treatment centres, or whether a mobile vat is available and, naturally, the guarante offered. Normally the company guarantee that no rusting will occur within a give] period; some periods are longer than other and some require that the vehicle is checkel and retreated if necessary at two-yea periods.
Guarantees do need studying careful!: and beware of those that guarantee ti refund the cost of the treatment if it prove unsatisfactory — £40 or whatever will no go very far if a rusted cab floor has to b replaced.