My D1 has been off the road for about 5 months and I've finally got round to doing some work on it.
The car is definitely worth saving but at a point where I don't want to put ££££ into it at a mechanics so I've been learning as I go.

I've done a little bit of welding at school but I'm keen to learn and have been reading a fair bit so I figure I've got to get stuck in. Obviously there's 'surface' rust throughout but many of the weaker areas aren't in too bad shape. I have however found two areas:

Corrosion hole in chassis by passenger front radius arm mount.



How should I deal with this? Cut back the rusted area, treat, then weld a 90deg plate onto the chasis butted up against the radius arm mount. The area of corrosion is about 30mm long.

The second area is the back of the passenger near side door sill. It's not a huge hole but I'm wondering whether I'm best to replace the whole sill? This feels like a step above my welding skills! Or should I again cut and bend a smaller patch plate then weld that on.



The next decision is whether to steam and waxoyl the whole underside myself or pay for it to be professionally done.

Any advice would be much apprecaited!

This is a better photo of the hole in the sill.

IME, the hole in the chassis is of greater concern, as D1 chassis' are not really prone to it, unless a drain hole has got blocked......

Whatever you can see - the damage will be worse, and I'd suggest a thorough clean up of the chassis before you do much else - you might be lucky, and this be the only damage - and you might not be, and end up wishing you hadn't started ..... but at least you will know.

Got a better picture of the chassis issue ?

The only real way to rid rust, is to cut back to good steel, and weld in new - but in structural areas under stress ( I.E. suspension mounts holding up a vehicle ) this can be awkward, and care will be needed.

I wouldn't bother with waxoyl either - it's cr*p now IMHO - there are better products out there for similar money ( bilt hamber / dinitrol )

Thanks for the advice. I think it will need to go to a pro in that case. I'll have a good look about for other signs but so far that's the only chassis issue I can see. Like you say there's bound to be more even if it's just in that one area.

Just as a matter of interest what do you rate more bilt hamber or dinitrol?

I don't think there is much to choose between them - they are both produce fine product ranges - There is a mass of info on the web:-

http://www.bilthamber.com/

https://www.dinitroldirect.com/