Let us talk you through
the nine stages of getting a 2CV rust free.
The photographs above are
of the The 2cv Shop 'cut-away car' which was specially prepared to
illustrate each stage in the process.
-
The Original Car
As you can see from area 1 on the car, the
original 2CV has plenty of rust and its old paint work.
-
Initial Shot Blasting
The objective is to remove the rust, so the car
shell is shot blasted back to bare metal.
In most cases the rust
starts from the inside out; you cannot see the rust from
the outside. If it is rusty inside, for example in a box
section, the rust will have thinned the metal and the
blasting will create a hole revealing the existence of
the rust on the inside to us.
We cut it out and
replace it with new metal.
-
Welding
We do all the welding required: floors, sills,
inner and outer toe board, boot floor, inner rear wings,
bonnet hinge, etc. And we weld in new metal where there
was once rust.
-
Second Blasting
Bare metal goes rusty very quickly. Welding
causes blueing in the metal where the heat gets in and
thins it slightly. This is often the first place where
rust will start; so we shot blast it again to remove the
blueing. If the metal is too thin the blast will make
pin holes; we repeat this process until we are happy
with the result.
-
Filling, Zinc-Coating,
Undersealing
A thin coat of filler
is applied to take out small blemishes, not to fill
holes or big dents.
A coating of zinc is
applied and injected into all cavities i.e. sills,
floors, A B C posts, bonnet hinge area, inside the toe
board etc; the joints are seam sealed.
The bottom of the body shell is
under sealed and the inside stone-chipped for harder
protection, this includes the underside of the four
wings.
-
Etch Priming
The body shell and panels are transferred to the
spray oven, two coats of etch primer applied.
-
High Build Priming
Then three coats of high build
primer are applied after this it is baked off in the
oven.
We apply a black guide coat so that
we can see all the high and low points in the high build
primer. This makes it easier to wet flat the panels. Wet
flatting gives a smooth base for the three colour coats.
-
Base Coating or Top coating
On this 2CV we applied three coats of base or top
coat. As
you can see from the picture, base coat goes on matt.
Base coat and lacquer are what are used on modern cars
today.
-
Lacquering
We apply three coats
of lacquer.
We only use a top
quality paint that does not fade within a couple of
years, unlike cheaper paint.
