now whilst crawling around under the car ive noticed te front arms are reasonably rusty. shall i hit it with the wire brush attachment on my drill and rust protectent on it or just leave it be?
they dont look very tidy,

leave it alone. They can rot through but usually they look rough and shotblasting reveals they are ok.

new you would know the answer mr front arms man!

thanks

What I've done with mine is to wire brush them to get the worst of the rust off them, leaving a lightly rusty textured surface behind. Just make sure there are no loose flakes still hanging on. I then brushed rust converter onto this - the rust is converted into an 'iron phosphate' or something, which gives a decent black protective finish . A coat of black paint over this (I use water-based paint for convenience) and a blow-over of Waxoyl spray when dry, and bob's your protected arms.

Of course, if you want a perfectly smooth finish to spray paint, then there's lots more work involved...

well i dont need a smooth finish, anythings better than rusted i geuss. well i may or may not wire brush them to get worse off. was thinking grind a small section to see how badly rusted (obviously without weakening arm or being stupid) and then take it from there. but may red oxide them. its the backs that are bad.

The beauty of rust converter is that you still need to have some rust left on the surface to convert! All you'd need to ensure is that the worst of the rust is removed, and this can probably be done with a wire brush by hand. The converter will do the rest.

However, if you are planning to red oxide it, then I guess the more rust you remove the better - I suppose you want bare metal first? Seems like a lot of unnecessary work to me, tho'...

I disagree, just get them shotblasted, that's what I did, you could go further and have them powdered too. perfectly smooth arms. All the ones I've had blasted have come out with the perfectly smooth finish they had at manufacture. There are some nice solutions to the resistance weld which always looks nasty too.

I'd say give 'em a tart over, if it's important to you. And, yes, mechanical clean and a paint brush is the way to go.



I've seen rears that have rotted out - from the inside - but never fronts... Bet that's entertaining when they start to weaken and bend...

I guess it's the same syndrome that saves Mini front subframes, they tend to be closer to any of the rustproofing the engine throws around now and again. I've seen rotten rears too, and never fronts. Don't front arms bend anyway? hence people use Belgian arms?

i believe the front are fine

i will wire brush them with the drill i think, get as much as i can off, and then any real bad things ill grind out with my dremel (need to get a proper size grinder keep using the dremel for everything, very time consuming!!)

well im using red oxide cos thats what i have i geuss.