I was doing an inspection of the car on Monday, and found the dreaded aluminium corrosion "Lurgy" bubbling under the paint in several spots on the door bottoms.

- Front lower corner of both rear doors, (2)
- Front corner of the driver's door (1).


Then I found one just by the rear drain hole in the RH rear door and another on the LH door the same The LH one had not yet crept around as having seen those that had, I immediately checked all wheel arches and door bottoms using a small mirror, plus figures to feel any bubbling. In all bar the one case, they seem to have crept round from the rear and all are adjacent to the outer door seal so plenty of scope for water to linger around.

Anyways, to cure, I scraped out the white powder below the paint back to bare aluminium, primed with zinc-rich primer, then acrylic stopper to make it level. After the stopper had hardened off, I flatted back to get a good surface, and primed with high-build primer. Today, I have got the base coat back on and will put the final clear lacquer on tomorrow. Then its going to be a Waxoyling session in and around these outer rubber door seals, and the wheel arch lips. I'm also going to trim the outer rubbers a bit at the bottom so there's a gap to stop water retention.

I suppose it's not bad for an 11 year old car. Fortunately we are having a run of good and dry weather at the moment. I have to do all the work in the open as garage is too small.

All this, plus a service next week, plus new tyres coming up !!

 

Hi Fraser,

Sorry to hear about your corrosion! Any chance you have taken photo of the damage and your repairs to help the rest of us when we inevitably have to face the same work?

Cheers,

Don

 

Sorry, no photos, as I was in too much of a rush to finish. Today is cloudy and drizzle, needless to say. This is England after all !

 

Fraser, what tyres are you getting? I hate the tyre noise coming from the Continental ProContacts 235/50 18 that are on mine now, looking for a quieter tyre .

 

Paintwork now finished as of today, (sunny and warm), ready for trip to Jaguar Enthusiasts 30 year rally tomorrow at Thoresby Hall north of Nottingham. Next week, I'm going to go round with the anti-corrosion Waxoyl stuff to try to stop further attack.

To Clamdigger, I intend to put on Pirelli P6000 Powergy tyres. A local tyre shop has them for a good price, and they have lasted very well, (about 35l miles). Rears are Accelera Phi which I will also replace with the Pirellis. The Acceleras seem OK but now they are worn (30k on these so far), they are not so good in wet weather. They are very cheap though, so anyone in a place that gets little rain would find them OK.

Actually, I think I could probably get to 40k with the Pirellis, but as I'm going to Germany on holiday next month, I think they need replacing before I set off.

 

Fraser how are they for road noise?

 

Clamdigger, I reallyhave nothing to compare with, as they've been on the car almost since I bought it. Reasonably OK, I would say. The EU tyre labelling system we now have does show them on 73dB, whereas one can get others on 71 Db or thereabouts. However with a life like this, (35K miles and counting), I'm sticking with them.