The Dark Wob

I've heard of people using garden watering sprinklers and driving it over them a few times to clean the underbody.
I've got one of those rectangular ones where the head moves through about 120 degrees or so and has quite strong jets. I might try it on the camper if it gets used on salted roads.

Salts remain on the roads long after the last spread and I actually think the worst damage is done at the end of winter when spring rains wash it all out of the verges and it gets chucked, unseen, under every water trap. Careful use in dry weather where the temperature is warm enough to dry the frost off the road surfaces is preferable to an unused car for four months or so....

Karcher do an underbody car washing kit which is very similar to a lawn-watering spinner but on a higher pressure. Personally, I don't feel happy using anything other than mains water pressure with a sprinkler attachment to clean under the car and only do this sparingly - I fear more damage gets done blasting salt deposits into crevices than the natural amounts thrown up by wheels.

I take the camper out for a run every couple of weeks when it's dry and use the wipers, washers etc. to try and stop them seizing up. The heating is crap, hardly surprising when the warm air has to travel the best part of 15' from the engine, but 10 miles or so means that the engine warms through. Inbetween it gets connected to a C-Tek every week or so to keep the batteries charged up.

I just use a hose and wash under the arches and the sills every time I wash the car. I suppose it helps that we don't get a lot of salting down here and helps even more that I never actually go anywhere!

Reminds me that I need to get a ctek for the Boxster. Hopefully it hasn't flattened itself too much so I can't start it.

I'd much prefer to get that out and use it a bit over the winter. Especially as driving in cold temps with the roof down is ace. Problem is that it needs a good £1k of parts throwing at it and if I don't do it myself, labour on top of that too. Until we move I can't do it myself as risk of exchanging with another car in pieces. Also I'd need to start the tax on it and I've already paid for this month on the Laguna.

captain_70s wrote: ↑Wed Dec 04, 2019 1:04 am So whatever rust issues you have will be less bad than mine given that the chances of me having the time/weather to sand that back and apply fresh paint before Spring time are very slim...

This is true but the problem I have is that I'm too precious with my cars. No matter their worth, I treat them all the same. I've probably got around £5.5k invested* into the MGB and it's relistically probably worth around £4k?, so I don't want to cause myself to either create even more expenditure or make it worth bugger all by screwing it up. Especially as it has somewhere undercover it can live for a couple of months during the worst.

Having it outside in the winter before last is what did the most damage to the bodywork. But then relistically it probably could do with a respray and repair in bits of the car. However it just feels wrong to potentially ruin a car that's been nurtured (or under cover at least) for the last 46 years.

Wouldn't be so bad if I had a car port to take the worst of the weather off while it sat there.

First world problems eh...

No matter what you do to try and prevent or avoid corrosion it still rears it's ugly head. Got new Heritage wings on the Minor a few years ago, had them fitted professionally and I red-oxided and stone-chipped the inner surfaces before they were fitted and sprayed. Scraped a four inch swathe of paint off one of them yesterday morning (with a bloody ice scraper) after I saw some bubbling that wasn't there last week.....Now it is too cold and damp to properly prepare and paint the area again and I have just sprayed it with Bilt Hamber....

God knows what is happening inside the chassis legs - these have all been Bilt-Hamber'd several times but you cannot see the bits you miss inside box sections.

For what it's worth this is my winter regime for both Morrises and the T25 -

Rotate the storage of Morrises between lock up garage and car port at home. The distance between the two is less than half a mile so minimal exposure to salt if it is been spread (unusual on the estate roads between the two). Run them both out for at least 20 miles at any opportunity or use one of them for work for a few days when no salt. I swap them over once a month or sooner....

Get the van out of the barn (this is further away and the van can only live there or outside because of the height) run up to full temp (when fan cuts in) after having driven around the farm for 20 minutes or so. I do this every 5/6 weeks in the winter period.

On both occasions I put power through all the electrical circuits and in the case of the van disconnect the battery afterwards. Van tyre pressures are max'd to 55 psi for the storage period. With the cars its less important to worry about the tyres as they get rotated naturally much more frequently.

In between each bout of use or exercise (weekly) I go up and turn the engines over (easy on the Morrises with the handle) on all three to keep everything lubricated. The van will not fuel when cold without setting the choke so I can do that on the starter.

As I said earlier elsewhere, I don't give a stuff about paint,polish or dirt but I do keep them as dry as is possible and stop things seizing up.

Jet washes can be very fierce and remove paint. A good hose is best combined with a stiff brush from a dustpan and brush set for under the wheelarches and sills. I soak underneath first to soften the dirt, wash the upper bodywork as normal and then finish the dirty job of cleaning underneath. This really does prolong the life of a vehicle. I think you can store a car for 4 months without major problems, as long as the battery is charged every month or two and the hydraulic systems operated. Engines can be left standing for ages but the hydraulics like to be exercised. What you must never do is start the engine and allow to idle for a while then switch it off again. This is definitely harmful to an engine.

I've been starting my MGB engine and letting it idle until it reached operating temperature since it's been off the road, every couple of weeks or so for about 13 years now. I took the view, perhaps wrongly, that it would seize up otherwise. It also enabled me to run it in and out of the carport to exercise the clutch and brakes.
Hopefully it'll be back on the road next year after the welding is done and I might even update the thread, although I think that it is about two forums back now.

chadders wrote: ↑Wed Dec 04, 2019 8:19 pm ... two forums back ...