Is my Xantia galvanised? :)

[romie]

Hey-up guys

Ok, shame on me, I've put a foot over in the dark-rusty-side and bought a 1999 149kmiles Ford Transit Tourneo 2.5l Di (lowering head in shame)..

My 1996 Xantia 1.9TD has covered 263kmiles (still going strong thanks to all the help from everyone on here!!), and has like very little rust.

The younger, lower mileage Ford is covered in rust, corrosion, holes you can put your damn fist through....

So, question - why?

I want to achieve the same result on the Ford as Citroen has achieved.
Is it a case of fantastic primer and paint, or is it that the metalwork is galvanised?

I've been calling around a number of Citroen main dealers, Citroen UK and Citroen France and I've only managed to get an email address to contact, (which I'm waiting for reply).
(interestingly, in rather broken English, Citroen France said I had to contact, "museum Citroen"!! How rude :p )

I've found lot's of, "I think", and "I've heard".. but not a definitive answer to this?

Anyone know Citroen's process for sure?

Cheers, Romie

[lexi]

Citroens process was not proper galvanised. It was sprayed zinc. It may have been hot sprayed.
It was only on the thin steel body panels I think. They started it on the BX. Many many cars have it as well. Fiat for one.

If Citroen had spent a bit of time on their Xantia subframes and ancilliary components underneath.......they are shocking with rust!
Ford have never been any good really for rustproofing. Even 7 year old Ka's are failing MOT with sills.

[citroenxm]

Grind a Xantia body panel down, and you will find about three layers ...

Outer paint
Under seal covering
then a form of galvanising before finally getting down to the metal!

They ARE very well protected by galvanising, but Im not sure if its a spray or a quick Dip. However, the issues we are seeing lately, is they rust inside out where the galvanising is weaker. The main areas, the rear door jambs, the rear panel on the passenger side goes inside outward, and the back of the cills, behind the cill edge, theres a flat area, they rust inside out, BUT the reason for this is the in spection grommet in the rear wheel arch leading area wears away, this then lets water into the cill, it sits in the cill and rots it out.

I did post it up on here, but it NEVER got stuck at the top strangely... I thought it was an important thing to have been kept at the top.

EDIT: Ah, Zinc treatment, they did that on the XM aswell Lexi thinking about it, Id NOT be suprised if the Xantia is the same. One would hope.

[romie]

hey cheers!
So quick with replies

You don't get that on the ford forum! >:P

Ok, so is it worthwhile trying to achieve the same results when replacing panels on either vehicle?

[bxzx16v]

Good old bus the 2.5di transits, I had an Ldv convoy with the same engine and loved it, funnily enough that was bad for rust due to virtually zero rust protection .

Mark

[Mandrake]

The Xantia is incredibly rust resistant compared to earlier Citroen's and I'm sure I remember reading an article about the galvanising process years ago when Xantia's were first coming out.

Compare them to earlier models like the GS and CX which were built strong (just look at how incredibly strong and over-engineered the front suspension sub chassis is on a GS or CX compared to ANY modern car) but they had NO rust protection whatsoever except, well, a layer of paint and some French wishful thinking...

Back in New Zealand where no road salt is used (at least in the North where I'm from) cars don't rust anything like they do here in the salt infested UK, and yet all our GS's and CX's were ultimately put off the road through massive inoperable structural rust even though mechanically the engine/gearbox/suspension were still sound...

I think my Dad's GS made it to 23 with quite a number of patch ups to the body including bog (shhh!) and so on, but by 23 it was a lost cause, couldn't pass a test any more and was too far gone to repair. A few years after it went off the road and had to finally be disposed of the core body structure literally broke apart when trying to get it up onto a truck, it was that bad that all the main structural areas were rotted out. My GS when I got it at 17 years old already had a rust hole you could put your fist through (literally) in the front passenger foot well, which was patched up, and numerous other areas like gaping holes between the rear wheel well and the inside of the boot, that car lasted about 3-4 years, had a head on collision, (no damage to the suspension after a 40mph head on collision!) was fixed up again then died a couple of years later due to inoperable rust. Our CX befell a similar rust infested fate at about 23, but was struggling every year before that for many years to pass without constant rust repairs and patch ups.

Fast forward to our Xantia's, also in NZ in the same climate - my 1997 one bought at 8 years old rust free, sold at 12 still perfectly rust free (even underneath and suspension components, linkages etc) except for one rather odd split near the edge of the roof where a little rust had got in.

Dad's 1994 Xantia bought at 11 years old, still going today at 20 years old (although now driven by my sister as Dad can no longer drive...) NO rust repairs have been done to it at all, no rust, passed the last test without advisories I'm told.

Mum's 1993 Xantia bought at 14 years old, was going up until a few months ago when a strut top speared its bonnet (rubber block failure in NZ, not rust) and was still perfectly rust free everywhere including underneath at 20 years old, despite the fact that it had a number of scratches that went right through the paint due to a few accidental liaisons with letterboxes and farm gates. Had it not been for the speared bonnet I'm sure that car would have lasted many more years. (She's replaced it with another 1.9TD Xantia, a 1996 I believe)

I would go so far as to say that in a non salt environment Xantia's just don't rust, period, at least not in under 20 years. I never heard of a rusty Xantia in New Zealand. So it's no surprise that they hold up so well even in the salt infested UK aside from a few known weak points like strut top mounts. I don't know what Citroen did exactly but they sure made a big turnaround in rust proofing from the early days! I hate to think how badly GS's and CX's rotted away in the UK...

[romie]

I’m new to bodywork stuff.
So is there a process, product, chemical list I can follow to achieve the same results?
I’ve already got 45% concentrate Phosphoric acid to start testing with :p

Has anyone galvanised a body panel before?
Where from, how much, or can I do it myself with Zinc sulphate and electrolysis? Or this thing called hot-dip? Or cold spray/paint on stuff? Is it worth it?
Rust inhibitors?
Zinc rich, acid etch or epoxy primers, or combination of all?
Top coat preferences for robustness?

Many thanks for picking your experienced brains on this

[isisalar]

Only bare steel can be galvanized so not really practical to do on a used panel. New ones would come in primer at least, they may or may not be galvanized before priming. There are a few paints which claim to neutralize rust i.e. Hammerite and red oxide.
Cheers
Paul

[handyman]

Ok, here is the low down on the galvanic process used by PSA to fend off corrosion in their manufacturing of car bodies.

I few years ago, I meet an engineer who worked for a company in Crawley, UK that was instrumental in the design & implementation of the galvanic process that PSA used in dipping car bodies to stop corrosion. When I meet him, he was, unfortunately, in the initial stages of Alzheimers Disease. At least the company was British!

The process is not hot-dip galvanising, but a galvanic process using zinc in an electrolytic solution to deposit it onto the bare steel bodies. The first cars to have this, amongst others in the PSA range, were the ZX & the XM. The process was to dip the lower sections of the main body structure, monocoque, into a zinc rich electrolytic solution, with an electrical current passing from the holding tank to the car body, inducing cathodic deposition of zinc onto the bare steel. Quite simple but effective, the deposit being only around the lower parts of the structure like floorpan, sills, rails, inner wings etc.

Good for stopping, or slowing the rot, but not infallable, and a bugger when you do need to effect repairs to a rotted section as the zinc inhibits the ability to form a good weld seam, due to spatter.

All other body panels were phosphate treated, prior to priming & painting. This is the brown coloured finish you see on new panels & should never be removed.

There you go.

Handyman

[lexi]

Good stuff Handyman.
Distortion is reason you cannot hot dip in molten zinc. Anything less than 2mm that has critical shape, wont keep it.
Zx wasn't bad .......but inner wings not great.

Any new metal let in is best treated in epoxy primer seemingly. It is waterproof and has good adhesion.
Older metal with any surface rust, I use phosphoric acid. Then a red or zinc primer and hard wearing topcoats. Red Bondaprimer is good.
If a car can stand up here in UK, it is a good car. However, you need to be fighting and working to preserve it early on. Mrs Lexi's Honda Jazz at 3 yrs old will be getting the treatment this summer. It won't remain pristine otherwise for the long term without help. The Vel will get it also as that is still immaculate underneath due to it's build quality.

[dnsey]

The aerosol 'auto-galvanising' paint is worth considering for DIY work.
I used it years ago on steel framing for benches in a commercial darkroom - a pretty hostile environment - and was surprised how effective it was.

[romie]

I'm having difficulties accessing this site for some reason,

"Re: Oops! Google Chrome could not find http://www.frenchcarforum.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;"

so sorry for late reply...

[romie]

ah, nice one handyman!

Recon a bunch of people will appreciate you posting that!
This will probably be referred to a-lot, and from outside this site as there is lot's of thoughts around this when doing a search on the subject.

I'll have to look into costs of galvanising parts myself, obviously stripping primer from any new purchased parts first.

Any more info on the phosphate process?
Having figured out the active ingredient of 'rust converters' is Phosphoric Acid, I've got 5 litres of the stuff at 45% concentration. I'll have to start tests and research this subject, but I'll most probably have to dilute.
So yes, any more tech info, or know of anyone who might know more would be cool?

Cheers Romie

[romie]

Thanks, lexi

Great info!

"you need to be fighting and working to preserve it early on"

Exactly! Hence my efforts here