Fixing the chassis

The chassis I bought off ebay (see earlier pages) came sandblasted and powder-coated, so I assumed it would be ready to go.

However, powder-coating is only as good as the person who did the job, and sadly the person doing the job wasn’t quite up to my standards.

The powder spraying hadn’t been done thoroughly, so some of the nooks and crannies weren’t covered and the missed bits were starting to get some surface rust.

I decided to give it two coats of POR-15, then two topcoats, which should be enough for anyone.

I said it earlier, and I’ll say it again – don’t bother with POR-15. The instructions for applying POR-15 are very detailed, and they’re detailed for a very good reason – POR-15 doesn’t stick to the substrate very well, and topcoats don’t stick to the POR-15.

I washed the powder-coat down with Marine Clean (the recommended POR-15 product), them mist-coated the powder coat with etch primer.

At this point I sprayed the interior of the chassis with SW 2 Protective Oil, again from the POR-15 people. This is supposed to be similar to fish oil, but more effective. I pumped about half a litre in there, and mopped up the outside where it dripped out as I went. There are an awful lot of holes in a Series chassis!

War story: I bought a small pump action spray from Bunnings, which pressurised the plastic bottle it was screwed on to and let me spray the oil in. I went at this for a little while, good results all round. Then I went to pump up the bottle again and bang – the plastic bottle exploded under the pressure, and blew nearly half a litre of oil over the chassis, me, the driveway and the Camry which was parked nearby. I got it off the chassis and the Camry with Marine Clean and turps, and most of it washed off me later that night in the shower. I got the driveway clean a few weeks later (when the chassis was at the blasters – see next page) with 2L of paint stripper followed up with the Gurni. An interesting experience.

Back to the chassis. I put a coat of grey POR-15 on the chassis, and it went on ok, but it was like water and ran everywhere. I never did manage to get all the drips and runs off. I followed this up with black POR-15, within the 2-5 hours recommended, then gave it a mist coat of etch primer a couple of hours later.

It was a full day’s work, and a real pain in the bum.

I waited a week for it all to dry, then it went off to the blasters with the firewall – see next page.

When I got it back, I gave it two topcoats.

One of the (very few) benefits of advancing years is the experience it brings. I bought my trailer 18 years ago, and it’s still rust free, because I’ve kept it painted. I’ve used half a dozen different brands of paint on it over the years. Whenever the paint starts to get dinged about, which happens when you cart rubbish, bricks, mulch and anything else in it, I wire brush it back to metal with the angle grinder, and repaint. One of the things I have noticed is that the Galmet paint I put on 15 years ago is still hanging in there, better than anything else I have used.

So the decision is to use Galmet as the topcoat – including on the body, I might add. While I’m here, I might philosophise a bit. I’m not trying to do an authentic restoration back to the way the vehicle came out of the factory. I want a Series II, with the headlights mounted inboard, like the Golf truck on the first page. I’m happy to use modern materials wherever they’re suitable – exactly the way the engineers in Solihull would have if they had been available. And the paint job will be as long-lasting and durable as I can make it. But it won’t be a showroom condition, deep gloss, flawless job that I’ll be terrified to take out the driveway in case I scratch it. If it gets scratched – it gets another coat of Galmet, and good luck to it.

Anyway – back to the paint. I gave the chassis a coat of matt black (so I could see where the gloss coat had to go), then followed it up with a coat of gloss black.

Pictures below.

This is the chassis in all its powder-coated glory – complete with the surface rust, which was not obvious unless you looked carefully.

Applying the POR-15. They’re right about one thing – it doesn’t wash off your hands or clothes. The pants still have patches of paint on them, and it took two days of hand washing, including in the end with washing powder as an abrasive, to get my hands clean.

This is the chassis with the Galmet matt black partially applied over the previous coat of etch primer. Take note of the system for suspending it – the timber is close to the lateral centre of gravity, and means I can turn over the 105kg of chassis without help. I’m thinking of patenting it.

Finished and ready to go, nice and black and shiny.