Volvo RWD 120-130 Forum

Hello All,

Anybody have any idea about 304 ss repair panels are available?

Thanks

greendread

Attaching stainless to mild steel is an uber bad idea, you increase the likelihood of the mild steel corroding because the car will act as a giant sacrificial anode to the piece of stainless you welded in.
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Three 164's, Two 144's, One 142 & a partridge in a pear tree.

...which as I stated in my other response is, even less noble than BOTH base metals in the galvanic series! An Ueberbad idea is making repairs with aluminum...that turns to white powder!

"the car will act as a giant sacrificial anode"...given a repair panel is smaller than the rest of vehicle, the Cathode/Anode Ratio is at least in our favor. See:
http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/seagrant/publications/corrosion.html

Cheers

I read right up to the China bash, then I stopped reading further, sorry.

http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/seagrant/publications/corrosion.html

That's a good read.

--
Three 164's, Two 144's, One 142 & a partridge in a pear tree.

There's a mild to stainless wire for welding the two together, plus whatever shielding gas you'll need for the job. Can be done...

Are you asking if they are available or telling us that they are? If someone has gone through the effort and expense of making stainless panels, I hope they have also figured out how they are going to attach them to the rest of the (mild steel)car. Stainless work hardens so quickly it is just about unmanageable, and it has some other qualities that are a 4 star pain as well.

Hello All,

Sorry to be so vague?! I was asking if they where available...

I recently came across two repair panels both pressed for the driver front floor, and I wasn't too impressed, as I am anxiously awaiting redoing the floors in my 68 120, and I was looking for a repair option with more toughness than the panels I've seen available (I don't want to have to redo the repair for at least six years).

I think i'll just press the heaviest steel I can find and coat with por 15. any ideas, tips, tricks are always welcome.

Cheers,
greendread

If you've got the technology laying around to dupe a floor panel, I think you might be just as well to make it out of mild steel. (Good steel, if available, not some of that horrible "offshore" stuff that is of questionable merit on a good day.) A couple three coats of POR, along with some 3M undercoat, and I think you'd go another 10 years before any issues cropped up. Good luck, let us know what you decide to do. This is a common woe amongst all the restoration folks out there, obviously not just Volvos.

Will do!

Guys;

That was a resto project from a while ago on the Snow Weasel...you can read about it here: http://www.sw-em.com/DeLorean.htm
I was quite pleased with the result, and the repaired sections STILL look like the kitchen sink and the day Peter Z. welded them in using Stargon gas and Stainless wire feed...yes SS is more difficult to deal with, but it surely won't go the way of the absolute junk steel (China's best!) with which Royal Welding did the first repair work...

...my thought was to make a run of 2"x2" and 2"x3" hat section frame repair pieces and make them available to others but there was only limited interest that made itself known, so I have never proceeded with the project past doing it for myself...for the time being, call the project on long-term hold...

Even with all the research I've done on galvanic corrosion, and the fact that the small difference (minor but none the less inescapably different) on the Galvanic chart now concerns me more, and to the point that I would only add SS repair work if I was also adding a sacrificial zinc anode, I would still give welding SS to mild steel a thumbs up, but add the zinc just to assure the mild steel of the rest of the car doesn't go away in preference to the SS in the long run (rust, and chemistry, NEVER sleep!)...adding zinc anodes is a well known corrosion control technique* used on steel in the marine environment...ask any ocean going boaters...it's based on solid science and chemistry and works! I have done a lot of research on the subject and collected a lot of info, but that is a SwEm Tech Article for another day.

* notice I didn't say preventer, because there is virtually no such thing...but adding a sacrificial anode puts YOU more in control of the demon rust and puts the corrosion where YOU want it: On a replaceable block, not for instance on the back, inaccessible side of a frame member...

Delorean Still had it right! (Hey, I just wonder if he had an anode designed into the car somewhere!)

Cheers