CHASSIS & BULKHEAD PRESERVATION
by Takeo De Meter
If
you know what a Land-Rover is, then you also ought to know what a rotten
chassis and/or a rotten bulkhead (firewall) is. Nice, huh ? Yea, I know,
I had the same prob once. We all have so much confidence in what our masters
in Solihull produce, that we think that some preservation effort from
Day One is superfluous. WRONG. Land-Rovers are made from the cheapest
steel that will more or less match the requirements and the Birmabrite
will also be eaten up by road salt in the end. Please tell me that I am
wrong. I am not, am I ?
I used to work for a semi-trailer manufacturer as a development engineer
and I know that it is perfectly possible to build a chassis out of rust-resistent
steel that hardly needs any painting, except for matching the customer‘s
colors, and this steel is not more than 20 % more expensive than the usual
There is not much steel in a Land-Rover chassis, so that would harly influence
the product cost and we would all be glad to pay it. Oh well. There is,
however, ONE treatment that works: it is called „Dinitrol“ here
and may be called „Waxoyl“ somewhere else, but it is all the
same. The full treatment, that is. One has to bring his vehicle to a „Dinitrol“
or whatever properly licenced workshop and leave it there for a day or
so The preservative product will then be injected in all hollows in the
structure, holes being drilled and plugged afterwards where needed. Price
is about EUR 1,000.-- but you get a LIFETIME guarantee. How about that
?
I had my 250 GT Lancia treated this way, back in 1966 and she is still
totally rustless, happily sitting in a french collector‘s hall. Its
Neri special race engine is still churning out its original 240 BHP. Heheh.
Pictures will be inserted here as soon as we've found them.