Renovation process 2010

  • March 2010 – Well the wet weather has not done good things to the electricals… we had record HUGE rainfalls over the last few weeks including landslides on roads and rail-lines in the mountains in early Feb. The bad weather has continued for the whole month. Actually most of this summer has been very wet and hot.
    The car refused to start after about 5 days of torrential rain and general very high humidity and some heat. Battery was so totally dead – indicating it should not be recharged… so I bought a new battery and it still would not start so had to get it towed and taken to get fixed. You could see some corrosion starting on the battery connector from ambient atmospheric moisture. The alternator had shorted out and damaged the regulator and discharged the battery. Alternator has been repaired and regulator replaced and also 2 additional relays added to the circuit. Spark plugs replaced as well – choked up due to flooding while trying to get it started most likely. I will need to go over the under bonnet area and look for any further issues when the weather settles again.
  • March 2010 – The summer wet weather has created more problems. A nasty surprise was had when checking for leak damage in the passenger floor area. Rust has formed by leaking through the front left box section seal and it has rusted it’s way through to form a hole about 1cm wide. A very hard one to spot till it’s formed a hole. Surface rust has developed over the passenger side floorpan area under the carpet. Rubber seals have temporarily been removed from the drain holes to drain and dry the area and the door step covering vinyl has been lifted as well. A small hole has formed in the box section. This will be cut out and replaced after the main seal is repaired and the whole area is rust treated. The carpets are all in perfect condition still and only the sound proofing padding had any water or rust staining – which was very light. Surface rust has leached through under the fabric [vinyl] cover along door step where the water has soaked the padding. Only real damage here is to the fabric padding which can be replaced. It looks way worse than it is. The rust – aside from around the actual box section hole – can be scratched off with a wire brush etc. and is very much only surface and very light. This box section damage is currently being repaired.

    Larger images have been loaded into flickr.
  • March 2010 – There is also now rust in the multilayered section at the bottom corner of the passenger side door. It will need to be cut out I would guess – have to get it looked at. It has penetrated the inner layers of metal on the edge of the door and the paint has pealed back – but does not show on the outside.

  • May 2010 – been a bit of a delay but the internal rust has been removed. Here’s what the panel section cutout looks like all cleaned up and treated inside.

  • September 2010 – a diode in the alternator has blown for the second time. It’s being replaced under warranty. The only symptom is that the charge light is on permanently. It was flickering for some time indicating that there was a voltage variation, then ‘ping’ it came on. It does not appear to affect any other aspect of the electrics and the battery is charging fine etc.