Duetto Rust - Areas to watch out for

Just to recommend to the forum and duetto owners in particular, what I think is a fantastically educative set of thirteen videos about Ford Transit rust and its treatment.

This is a link to the first video in the series:

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I hope your duetto is nowhere near as rusty as this tranit van! However, if you follow the videos (even if you do not intend to undertake any welding yourself) you will gain a very good idea of the the weak points for rust and this might enable you to take preventative action.

My personal favourite products are hammerite black underseal with waxoyl for everything exterior under the van, and hammerite clear waxoyl for spraying inside all box sections, door panels, and sills, etc.

The videos are very informative on other products such as Vactan rust converter (fairly similar to Kurust) and POR15 for painting over rusted metal.

The first video in the series is also very helpful in showing how the front wings and front bumper can be removed (they are only secured with nuts and screws). Removing the bumper, headlight units, and wings gives access to metal sections that should be checked and treated and which are otherwise likely to be rusting away unseen.  This is something I will take on myself - perhaps next summer.

As it happens, I am in the second year of ownership of my own 2002 duetto. I did inspect the vehicle underneath before purchase and the fact that the vehicle was so good for its age was an important factor in the decision to purchase. It was almost entirely rust free and the only rust appearing was at the stage of light dusting. Last year, I wire-brushed the whole of the underside and then treated with hammerite underbody seal with waxoyl and squirted the clear waxoyl in every hole and cavity I could find.

I am currently in the middle of doing the whole of the vehicle again, in the same way. I am hoping two consecutive annual treatments will achieve really good protection. In subsequent years, I suspect it will be sufficient to retreat every two or three years.  This is an approach I have adopted with vehicles I have owned in the past, with success. I even managed to keep a Citroen 2CV on the road for twenty years in this way.

Last but not least, the series of videos is somewhat reassuring in that even if the rust gets really bad - as is the case with the van in the video - something can still be done about it.

The person who has made the video and undertaken the welding himself, makes the argument that getting a garage to do the work would not justify the cost in relation to the value of the vehicle. However, with a motorhome and its inherent additional value the cost equation is entirely different.

Dave 418

As a former MOT tester you speak with real authority. It is great to know that there are people with that kind of expertise on the forum and who own duettos

My intention was mainly to draw attention to where transits rust in the hope of encouraging preventative action. I regard myself as fairly competent mechanically (to the extent of a couple of engine swaps and one gearbox change in my diy cv), but I do not weld. I have always fancied learning, but don't expect I will get round to it now. Moreover, there is no way I would attempt to learn by undertaking a welding job on something structural and safety critical, such as the areas shown in the video. Like you, I would leave such jobs to a professional.

I, too, (as a non-expert) thought to myself that it was better to weld in complete new sections than to undertake a patching job. I did have a scout round on Google looking for chassis rails to see what was available. While there are a lot of prefabricated body panels available (wings, floor pans, sills, etc) I did not find any parts that were obvious replacements for the welding areas attempted in the video. What would a professional welder use: standardised/universal cross section rails of a suitable size?

Seeing the extent of the corrosion on a transit that looks as if it is only one year older than my own, makes me wonder what are the key factors that explain the difference in the condition of the vehicle in the video and my own.

Is it simply that the transit van has had a much harder life? Is it explained by a complete lack of preventative maintance?

I suspect probably both. I did also wonder whether Auto-Sleepers did anything extra. My vehicle seems to have had chassis rails and sills fairly well covered with some rubbery stone chip type protection. I don't know whether that was standard on Mark 6 vehicles, was something Auto-Sleepers themselves did, or (in my case) was undertaken by a previous owner.

If any Mk 6 duetto owners are looking in: how is your vehicle looking underneath, has it needed any welding yet: if so, what and where? The information would be of interest as it might help us to keep 'tin worm' at bay.

I cannot ever imagine my vehicle getting in a state as that seen in the video, but I did take some encouragement that even a vehicle that bad could be brought back to pass an MOT.

Ah the good old Tranny tin worm strikes!! 

Favourite spots on the Mk5 are rear door bottom edges, the rear quarter just beneath the guttering, all wheel arches, driver/passenger doors right where the quarter light meets the window (watch for cracking here which if left, will open up), the flitch panel beneath the windscreen covered by that pretty piece of plastic (to gather the leaves and rubbish!) and the first most owners will know whats been 'going on' is when a new screen is needed and the rotted flitch panel comes away with the old windscreen! Oh boy......you have real fun and games then because you need to find a welder pretty pronto and just pray he can also find enough metal to weld a new section in, otherwise you won't be going very far!

Another really bad point which always gets ignored because it can't be seen, are the inner wheel arches. In their wisdom (cunning!) Ford covered these with sound proofing before fitting the battery tray on the arch. So you then have a lovely bit of sponge which gets soaked and never dries out as it cannot 'air' and start the rotting process from the top out......unseen, unless you remove the battery tray. When i got my van i removed both tray's and cut that rubbish sound proofing away. It's not even needed there!!! Though the proofing was damp my arches were still solid but before replacing the batt trays i gave arches and trays a liberal coating of Waxoyl.

Also i'm lucky in that my van being an LE model has been extra rustproofed from new....and it shows in that all four arches are like new and even the underside of the van is, in the words of my MOT tester "the most solid Transit they've seen in a long time". Hopefully it stays that way for a few more years!