Best thing I've found for rust so far is Marine Penetrol. It is intended for use in rustproofing ballast tanks on ship, will penetrate heavy scale, drive out moisture, and can be coated with anything you like. It's also cheap, and better than the POR I used to use. Turns metal black just like POR.
Second-best thing, believe it or not, is plain old linseed oil. It penetrates rust and gels, but never really hardens, so doesn't encapsulate rust like paint and other rustproofers can. You need to recoat a couple times per year because it does erode, but after doing it spring and fall on my 126, it stopped undercarriage rust cold for the 7 years I've owned it--and I drove it in a lot of midwestern salt. I just slather it on with a small paintbrush on a warm day. I also flushed the car after each snowstorm with a lot of hot water from a high-pressure spray nozzle on a garden hose--enough to melt all the slush off and rinse every cranny until the water came off clear. Just running through the car wash "undercarriage spray" does more harm than good--saturates the salt and slush that's already there, but doesn't remove it. I let the car dry outside, then store it inside, but only because I hate scraping snow and ice off it before work every morning. Dan 82 300SD 336K FOR SALE $500 needs trans flush and alt installed Des Moines I wouldn't spray them down with water. If it's below freezing out, I'd just park them. Putting water on a salty car is just making things worse. Salt isn't good for a car, but if it's dry, I don't think it will do too much. Mix it with water, and add a bit of heat, then you have a problem! We get a LOT of salt use here too!! Insane amount in the city. Rust hasn't been too big a problem over the years, but I do leave the daily drivers outdoors in the winter, and I try not to wash them too often. On parts that I think are a bit vulnerable, I've been giving them a little spray with Rustcheck. Not the standard one, but the thicker one, which I think is used for farm equipment, storing snowblowers and such. It will wash off too, but I find it sticks quite well. I try to get a coat on when its' still warm out, so it will help aid with penetrating into some of the seams and stuff, but it doesn't flow much, unlike the regular stuff. I think the thicker Rustcheck is a bit more like what the English use, Waxoil. Tends to stay put a bit better. Ed 300E On 2 December 2010 18:29, Allan Streib <str...@cs.indiana.edu> wrote: > For a lot of us in states that see snow in the wintertime, it's hard to > keep the rust at bay for that long also if you are driving them in the salt. > And it seems to me that every year they dump the salt faster and more > heavily than the year before. > > Even if you try to spray the car off every time you get home, the salt > works its way into every nook and cranny and if it finds bare metal it goes > to work. > > Allan > -- > 1983 300D, with some rust starting to show. > > > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
