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18 years ago, I had a lot of rust-proofing wax applied to my convertible, including a lot of black waxoyl applied to the underside. The car lived outside in all weathers, I was doing 20,000 per annum, on UK salt-treated winter roads, so I thought that I needed to something to try and delay the inevitable rust.
Fast forward to Saturday and I decided to remove the tieplate on the rear cage just to make it a bit easier to do a diff oil change and clean up the grease nipples and rubbers on the wishbones.
Annoyingly, the 8 setcrews attaching the tieplate to the inner fulchrum were really tight, much higher than the specified torque. So, realised I'd have to remove the front bolts on the X-brace and lower it a bit. And at that point, I thought I might as well remove the X-brace entirely and get some wax into the mounting box sections.
So with the tieplate and X-brace off, my predilection for "whilst you're in there" kicked in and I thought I should clean them up.
I started with my absolutely least favourite job - cleaning black rust-proofing wax, road dirt and grit. By Sunday night, I'd de-waxed, cleaned, rust-treated, flattened out some jacking dents, primed and top-coated the tieplate. It's not too bad for a quick refurb that wasn't sand-blasted.
Today, I started on the X-brace. After 3 hours, I'd removed every trace of dirty black wax and embedded road grit, and remembered that it was bare metal and not painted from new! It really looks quite pretty and has preserved very well!
So now I have a decision to make: Do I paint it black, or coat it with a nice clear lacquer, or just put it back and coat it with wax again? The practical part of me says wax it, but I do dislike working on cars when the parts are coated in wax. Or do I pander to my visual obsessive and spray it with a clear lacquer and just accept that I've got to keep cleaning it? What would you do...and what have you done to yours?
I don't have one as I drive a coupe... however
I'd paint it with silver POR15. It would preserve the original look and from my experience will provide a very effective protection against rust, chips etc without the greasy feel of a wax type finish. I've used black and silver POR15 on many different car parts over the years and found it to be provide great protection.
Is it stainless? Au natural. If it’s not stainless, get yourself a powdercoat guy. I have every part I take off these cars powdercoated before putting it back on. Big pile of parts under $100 always. I don’t know how he makes any money.
Tks for all your suggestions. I'd probably have gone down the POR15 route but I couldn't get a small amount for next day delivery.
I found an alternative similar product from Jenolite who are well regarded on this side for rust converter, paints etc. Their metallic silver went on easily and is a good match for the original metal as my "after" photo shows.
With the wishbone grease nipples pumped until clean grease came out of the joints, I then inserted the new sump plug with the larger head, and refilled the diff with 75w- 140 LSD fluid (decided to try that on the recommendation of a few owners). With the fill plug installed (you can see here how easy it is to get to the speed sensor and shims, particularly with the tieplate removed), I then refitted the tieplate with new stainless fastenings, and then the x-brace. With the x-brace mount box sections resprayed internally with wax, the job is almost done.
However, I can't seem to lay my hands on the very late workshop manual section with the torque figures for the x-brace mount bolts. Does anyone happen to have access to the figure?
Here, at bottom of the page.
EDIT: note that this is in Newton-meters. My brain doesn't comprehend that, so I have a conversion chart on my garage wall!
Convertible rear X-brace - Paint, Lacquer or Wax?
