Trunk restoration (part 2)

Picking up where I left off with the trunk,

I used a vacuum cleaner to suck up all the dust and sand that was in the wheel wells and behind the rear quarters. Reason for doing this was the rust prevention product I was going to spray with an air gun next. It's important that the spray reaches (or seeps into) all nooks and crannies. Dust and sand get in the way and soak up the product. 

The product I used is Caprotech RX5, "a transparent product with a strong penetrating formula, penetrates through existing rust and bonds to the metal, completely isolating existing rust". The air gun is intended to be used with undercoating and rust prevention products (not with paint). It came with two nylon hoses about 2.5 feet long; one has a tip that sprays 360 degrees, the other one has a grip and nozzle that's at an 90 degrees angle. The two 55 litre LPG made it a bit difficult to see if I had reached everywhere so I simply sprayed until drips were forming at the lowest points on the outside of the car (doglegs, rear wheel arch etc.) 

 

 

Next I doubled-up on the sticky-back asphaltic sound deadening material where the factory placed it but I also stuck it on the trunk floor and the flat pieces that go over the 'frame' rails. If you knock in different areas you get a very good idea where you do and don't need to put this stuff. I'm not going to place additional sound deadening material because that was already done in the passenger compartment when a PO had the interior redone. 

So far I was only able to fit the first five pieces of the trunk kit from Leather Restorations/Jim Wallace. They cover the upright area in front of the rear bumper and tail lights. It took a bit of trying because I had to take into account the hoses, lines and cables from the LPG installation. It covered up 90% of that mess, which is better than I had expected. In a normal trunk the kit would fit no problem. Good stuff. Though it a good idea to test fit everything before you start spraying glue. 

At first I thought to cover-up the two LPG tanks with old leather travelling bags or suitcases. But this called for using parts of the trunk kit that just don't fit right or look presentable. Instead I opted to build covers for both tanks that - as luck would have it - fit very nicely with the trunk kit pieces I still can use. They line-up with the largest piece in the trunk kit - the one that covers the floor and gas tank.

I used hard-board, duct tape, bendy plastic and PVC pipe (for the rounded edges). It's a cheap and effective solution but it takes a few hours of cutting and fitting and cutting and fitting and cutting and fitting etc. It doesn't look like much now but wait until they're covered with the extra trunk liner material I ordered with the trunk kit.