|
You should EASILY be able to tell if there is a corrosion problem by
looking it over really well. If possible it would be a good idea to
pull the driver's door upholstery panel and look at the inside of the
door just to make sure.
I (and my 164) spent 22 years in Panama at the US Army Tropic Test Center.
I was the proprietor of what was probably the most aggressive natural exposure
corrosion test site in the world on the Toro Point Breakwater at Fort Sherman.
Atmospheric saltfall there ranged from 3-5 TONS per acre per year, and uncoated
steel specimens lasted a VERY short time. Painted specimens did better but
the intense global UV caused the paint to deteriorate rapidly also.
The 164 does have a few corrosion problems (it is 35 years old!) but nothing
serious. I did take the car to Fort Sherman from time to time and we had
rainfall from 60-130 inches/year depending on the year and the location.
(At one site at Fort Sherman we had over 51" of rain in November 1981, just
one MONTH.)
On the Pacific side in Panama (the south coast, Panama City) you could see
on metal roofs of very old buildings, that the rust was worse on the NORTH side.
Prevailing winds are from the north in Panama, off the Caribbean sea. Humidity
is high year-round, worse than anywhere in Florida.
Studies show that over 99% of the salt drops out of onshore winds in the
first few hundred meters, and if the water is calm, it drops out much faster.
We had 3 different corrosion sites, all within a kilometer of the Caribbean
at Fort Sherman and there were VAST differences in corrosion rates, in some
cases over a factor of 100. While not a direct predictor, the atmospheric
saltfall varied even more greatly. If you DON'T have onshore winds, the
predominant corrosion driver is a parameter known as "time of wetness".
Temperature is also a factor, with warmer being worse if the humidity stays
high. If not, warmer is better because with the same moisture content
("absolute humidity") the relative humidity goes down as temperature goes up.
You'll get rust and mildew inside a closed car in the shade in a warm, humid
environment, but not in the sun because the heat lowers the humidity and kills
or retards the fungus.
From the above you can see that onshore winds, especially very close to the
coast, are a serious problem. On the Texas gulf coast the situation is
made worse by numerous refineries and other industrial installations, many of
which are processing "sour crude" and "sour gas", both of which contain sulfur
compounds. Paper mills also put sulfur compounds into the air. You can smell
them. These greatly accelerate corrosion reactions, as do other manmade and
naturally-occurring compounds. Faulty or damaged paint will also contribute
to localized corrosion on cars. I park some of my cars under oak trees and
here in Green Country we get around 35" of rain a year, much of it in early
summer (now). In fact one day this past week we got over 2¼" of rain in about
4 hours. The oaks and a lot of other plants or trees produce tannins and other
phenolic compounds. I'm not sure if these occur naturally in the bark or are
decomposition products as the bark decomposes, but as the brown water drips on
the car, it renders what rust is there partly soluble, producing black streaks
going downward from rust spots, and greatly accelerating the progress of the
rust, and undermining the paint from the edges of damaged areas. On my 122
wagon, which had a rather expensive Panamanian paint job (actually 2 of them)
the paint was very thick on the hood and developed a network of shrink cracks.
I've only had it back in the US for 6 years now but it has serious rust in
those cracks and really needs a new paint job before it gets much worse.
While about 600 miles from the nearest ocean (at the Texas gulf coast),
here in northeast Oklahoma I've had worse corrosion than I did on the Pacific
side in Panama on that particular car. BTW those of you who live in pine woods
areas know about brown water (AKA "blackwater" like the Rio Negro in Brazil).
It is not toxic but is ugly and produces other problems like stains. It is
filtered out of groundwater by clay in the soil but not by sand in coastal
areas, so the rivers on the Carolina coast are all brown from the leaching
through the pinestraw on the ground.
Conclusion:
The fact that a car was kept near the ocean does NOT NECESSARILY mean it is
a rust hazard. Areas differ a lot. Corpus Christi is different from JAX,
and Kure Beach is different from Los Angeles. You need to look at the car to
tell.
--
George Downs, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Central US
|
Cars kept near oceans [200]