SKCC - Southern Kit Car Club. A Club for kit car owners across Southern England. Kent, Sussex, East Hants, Surrey, Berks, Middlesex, London

As my strap line says, I'm totally restoring a TR6. Anyway the chassis is being welded at the moment and I'll be painting after that but I need to de-rust.

Originally I thought of sandblasting (or soda blasting) but not easy to do at home and otherwise expensive with initial costs seeming at least £500+. Acid dip is out due to corosion problems and a wire brush will polish the metal. I thus thought of a needle gun on an airline and they are cheap to buy at circa £40. Plus I would rather do it myself.

Has anyone ever used a needle gun of a chassis or similar metal? (I'm not using it on bodywork.)

Well, in the end I bought a £26 one off eBay and it did a perfect job. Took a day or so to do the whole of my chassis and one was able to get into all those difficult places as the needles are loose so you can actually get just one into a small crevis / corner. Great buy.

That might be useful to know in the future, thanks.

How is the restoration progressing? It might not be a kit, but photos would be nice

Duncan

Well, I've hundreds of photos but all are so detailed as they are recording how things come apart so I can put it all back together again.

For many reasons I did not really start the strip down until 18 months ago and then for other reasons did not do a lot last year. So the status is ..

Last July I had finished the body strip down and prepared it for a local body restorer in Cowfield. Whilst he got side-tracked a lot that is all finished and he is just finishing off the painting of the underneath, engine bay, tub and boot. I neede several new panels and the rest the guy fabricated. Body due back in a week or two to be stored on my (own home made) rotisserie awaiting me to finish a rolling chassis.

Chassis totally stripped and repaied with just a few members. Also needle-guned and ready for painting with POR 15. I have also started to grit blast various other items so I can paint all together. Bought quite a lot including new power steering kit, polybush kit, overdrive, rear disc brake conversion and rear shocks conversion too. Currently also stripped down gearbox and awaiting bushes to put back together again. Avised not to do a DIY refurbish of a TR6 diff so now have a refurbished one.

Warning for others, add 50% to your budgeted cost!

Previous 'restoration' using pop-riveted galvanised panels!


Passenger's floor!


Rear wing damage.

That does look a lot of work! It is unbelievable what some people do to repair cars, a bodged repair is almost always harder to rectify than corroded decent panels. A separate chassis is great for restoration though

Richard. do you think the needle gun would be any good on oil based paint, taken on a bit of a project and looking for DIY ways to strip it if the DIY sand blaster does not work.
It's proper thick paint with plenty of coats

I can't comment on the needle gun Richard, but from past experience, the only way I have successfully dealt with paint like that has been using old style nitromors outside in the garden.

Last time, I bought nitromors it didn't seem the same and didn't penetrate well.

Otherwise if it isn't easily damaged, old school blow torch and scraper does the job well.

off to google 'needle gun'......

fair play Richard....i do love the look of a '6', or a 5 for that matter!

locost220 wrote:Richard. do you think the needle gun would be any good on oil based paint, taken on a bit of a project and looking for DIY ways to strip it if the DIY sand blaster does not work.
It's proper thick paint with plenty of coats

a

Hmm. The gun I bought was impressive and well made - surprising for China, loads on eBay and all the same as far as I can see - but was quite gentle in action. The needles only move a small amount - kind a vibrate - and you could put you hand over the end(!) Where some original Triumph paint still existed, it did not take it off. It only seemeed to take off the rusty bits. It also did not take the rusty bits back to metal but left the area rusty/pitted so that the paint would key to it.

I did notice that the vibration caused flaking rust internal to the chassis members to come off so I was reasonably pleased that when I prottect the insides with some form of wax / stuff it will stick and not allow water to get behind the wax / stuff lying on the flaked rust and rust further.

I'm thus doubting that it would take off your thick paint.

You would only use the gun on thickish metal, not car panels. Probably 1 to 2mm thick as minimum.

BTW, my compressor which is a 300l twin cylinder 14cpm kept going constantly so you need a good one.

Cheers Richard, I replaced by Stone age compressor last year as would not provide consistent adequate pressure for the media cabinet and knew it would struggle for the eventual spraying of the chassis and panels so I am good for that
Looks like the needle gun won't be up to the job for what need though.
Was going to use the spray booth to sand blast using a suction gun and a bucket of grit but might have to rethink that as might want to spray again in it some time.
Praying for a dry time at weekend to give it a go outside.