Check your sills

[rj scotty]

Been meaning to do this for 6 years and today was the day!

I removed the sill covers on the avant to clean out 16 years worth of dirt and What I found was horrific.





I have spent all day mechanically removing rust applying, Bilt and Hamber's brilliant Hydrate 80 and finally applied a coat of zinc rich primer a top coat will follow tomorrow.


H80 done


Zinc primer on.

If you have not removed your sill covers yet I urge you to do so ASAP. If it gets to this stage you spend the day on your back getting sh*t in your eyes putting it right.

More pics will follow tomorrow when the top coat is on and she is back together.

cheers

rich

[HORCH]

well I've just learned something cos I didnt know they had covers, are they the same on the coupe? youve done a good job

[Nuvo]

A good job well done. How did you go about removing the sill covers? I'm also interested to know if the same procedure can be applied to coupes too.

[rj scotty]

It's not to bad to remove the sill covers.

You remove the trim this sits on top of the sills in the door shuts, double sided tape holds them down heat with hair dryer and carefully remove.

This allows access to several screws remove these.

Working under the car remove the large fixings by turning 1/8 of a turn.

Remove the screws in the front wheel arch.

Remove little piece of trim at the front of rear wheel arch.

You now have access to all 4 plastic rivets, just push the centre of the rivets out.
The only problem is the upper rear rivet behind the little piece of trim falls into the body cavity and is lost forever, the rest can be recovered this one needs replacing.

Now just pull the sill toward you and hope you don't find rust holes

[Nuvo]

Thanks for the mini guide. I'll need to take a look a mine some time soon, here's hoping that they aren't too far gone.

[Nuvo]

What is the name of zinc rich primer you used?

[rj scotty]

Bilt & hamber again

http://www.bilthamber.com/pro-introd...name=Corrosion Prevention&name=electrox

[Nuvo]

You bought the 1ltr pail and brushed it rather than spraying it on with the 400ml aerosol right?

[rj scotty]

Correct

Can't see the point of spraying when nobody will ever see the finish and I had the paint sat on a shelf from a previous project. Total cost of todays work £0.00

[fish]

there is still a problem though... The rivets/fixings whatevere you call them for the plastic sill covers are all NLA...

[Mcstiff]

Do S2s have them? My CQ does not.

[fish]

not coupés, only Avants, and IIRC the S2 sedans have them aswell.

[Error404]

nice job rich... i found some scabby bits like that and ended up stripping off all the underseal

[rj scotty]

I can see why. The more you scrap the more you find.

Top coat on


Back together


Masking tape on the little trim piece is there until the glue is dry.

Only one of the pair of the rivets causes a problem, the one's under the little trim piece, the rest can be reused. I just put a screw in the rivet where the dowel would go, dose the job just as well.

[rs2315]

BTDT, rust starts at jacking points, after underseal has been ripped up with jacking.

I'll stick my neck out and say any S2 RS2 that has had underseal chewed to bits at jacking point for years will have rust along sills, and possibly working it's way towards the center of car in worse case scenario.

If it's a keeper, then take a look tomoz.

rs2315.