Life of a Galvinised Chassis

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crofter65

crofter65

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Hi, sorry this is not a documentary on the daily life of a chassis but I am wondering just how long a good quality Galvinised chassis should last. The subject is the chassis on my 1984 90 I bought this in 2009 with a brand new chassis fitted ( it was still shiny) now I have looked after it reasonably well and wax oiled it cleaned it regularly especially in winter, but when I took the rear tub off I am not sure what to make of it, the outriggers are showing signs of rust i.e red and the rest of the rear half is very textured.
What's best to tackle the visible rust? Jenolite then cold galvinise after a good clean of coarse.
I think the rest is just the galvinise doing its job.
 
With a name like 'Crofter' I'm guessing you live somewhere pretty bleak. Most of Scotland has a pretty high corrosion zone rating as I recall. Yes, just keep up to date with your rust treatment of choice (I prefer Dinitrol myself) and it will last as long as you want it to. Galvanised ones last longer of course, but they need a bit of help!
 
People seem to put a lot of faith in galvanised chassis, expecting them to last a lifetime. The trouble is that often the Metal used to make the chassis already has some oxidisation in its structure so after galvanising, it rusts from the inside. If looked after, I would expect a galv chassis to last ten years longer than a standard one. A good thick coat of suitable paint is probably as good as galv, if not better.

Col
 
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I think the quality of the galvanized process is important, I had a new Richards Chassis last year, while I was there they showed me a chassis removed from a vehicle which looked prety good, they told me it was 20 years old.
 
crofter65 said:
View attachment 126329 Hi, sorry this is not a documentary on the daily life of a chassis but I am wondering just how long a good quality Galvinised chassis should last. The subject is the chassis on my 1984 90 I bought this in 2009 with a brand new chassis fitted ( it was still shiny) now I have looked after it reasonably well and wax oiled it cleaned it regularly especially in winter, but when I took the rear tub off I am not sure what to make of it, the outriggers are showing signs of rust i.e red and the rest of the rear half is very textured.
What's best to tackle the visible rust? Jenolite then cold galvinise after a good clean of coarse.
I think the rest is just the galvinise doing its job.
Click to expand...

A galvanised gate lasts about 20 years if exposed to salt winds, maybe 30-40 if in ideal dry conditions, I would expect the same, or a little bit more, from a chassis.
Maybe even more if it was overpainted outside and Dinitroled inside.

Try rubbing off the loose rust on the bare sections, and coating with zinc rich primer like Galvafroid. Make sure you use a good quality one, it should be quite expensive, and a tin should be very heavy. Cheapies don't have enough zinc in them to work.
 
Thanks for the replies, I will treat the areas that's worst that's the tub brackets in the tubular outrigger, although there's corrosion it's by no means bad, just I would like to slow it down as much as I can. Yes I am from the north west highlands, in the winter everything gets covered in salt from the sea, so doesn't have much of a chance.
 
crofter65 said:
Thanks for the replies, I will treat the areas that's worst that's the tub brackets in the tubular outrigger, although there's corrosion it's by no means bad, just I would like to slow it down as much as I can. Yes I am from the north west highlands, in the winter everything gets covered in salt from the sea, so doesn't have much of a chance.
Click to expand...

Cleaning it off, and painting it thoroughly over the galv, will extend it's life in a salt environment.
 
I wouldn't expect a chassis to last longer than a gate. A chassis is travelling along at a fair old pace and all sorts of crap is being thrown up at it from the wheels. I had new galvanised hinges on my garden gate about 4 years ago and one is very rusty, one is quite rusty and the other still looks ok. They all looked the same when I fitted them.

Col
 
Colthebrummie said:
I wouldn't expect a chassis to last longer than a gate. A chassis is travelling along at a fair old pace and all sorts of crap is being thrown up at it from the wheels. I had new galvanised hinges on my garden gate about 4 years ago and one is very rusty, one is quite rusty and the other still looks ok. They all looked the same when I fitted them.

Col
Click to expand...

A chassis doesn't usually have its bottom stood in cow p!ss, though! ;)

And the hinges on your gate are poor quality galv. I have gates in my yard that I bought when I first had the farm 25 years ago, they are fine,
 
That's a good point about the gates. The place I go in Wales seems to have ruinous effect on gates, even though Wales isn't generally considered to be as high a corrosion zone as Scotland. Radnorshire Gate (OS ref SO 14615 85749) was sensibly galvanised against the elements and looked quite new a few years ago. But now it looks distinctly ropey, at least when I last walked by.
 
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Brown said:
That's a good point about the gates. The place I go in Wales seems to have ruinous effect on gates, even though Wales isn't generally considered to be as high a corrosion zone as Scotland. Radnorshire Gate (OS ref SO 14615 85749) was sensibly galvanised against the elements and looked quite new a few years ago. But now it looks distinctly ropey, at least when I last waked by.
Click to expand...

The environment makes a huge difference. Outside field gates, the bottom rail, where it is stood on mud and cow****, let go first. If the top rail lets go it is usually at the outside end, where people put their salty, greasy hands when they open the gate.
Inside a shed, with the gate hung on proper hinges, so the bottom is 8 inches off the ground, they last for donkeys years.
 
The key to a galv chassis lasting a long long time would be to treat it like a painted chassis. Starting with a freshly galvanised chassis etch prime it, paint it with the best paint you can find and absolutely flood it with Dinitrol then keep up a good maintenance program - which, probably would involve a body off clean up of the chassis every 25 years or so, sand it all down and redo the paint sort of thing.

Remember the zinc will sacrifice itself to prevent rot, so once it's gone in big enough patches, it's gone.
 
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The quality/thickness of the galv makes a difference all right. I have a gate that my dad bought over 50 years ago and it still good all over,while others I put up some 20 years ago are going quite brown on the side that faces the sea.
 
Many years ago when I was a steel erector we put up the switch house at Sizewell B the steelwork was heavily galved and the projected life was minimum 25 yrs, it must still be good as Im assuming water leaks in a nuclear power plant switch house arent considered good news!
 
The body cappings on my 85 are now 32 years old and apart from a slight staining on one corner are like new. The designa chassis is thicker at 3mm or you can have it as 4 or 5 mm.
 
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