Rust

[tmk]

Has anyone seen this?
http://www.jcwhitney.com/item.jhtml?ITEMID=12

TMK
73 914S 2.1L

[Germain]

I have now

I would say... rip off.

Basically what they are selling you is a clear coat for your car. For $88? Thats cheap.

On theroy, it would work. You basically are creating a shield that protects the paint (like a clear coat). won't protect areas that are not coated with the specail polymer.

One other way to look at it is, why don't cars come stock with this thing if it works so well? Cost - not in this case. $88 is cheep, GM could do a car for $25 I bet.

This is just my take on this product. I am making a rather uninformed opinion. I don't know the entire workings of the product, only what is on JC's website.

[turbo2.0]

Scam. Waste of money. Worthless. Complete joke.

[JP Noonan]

When I asked a Jamacian dock hand,

"How the heck did rist get INSIDE my outboard steering cable??"

He simply said

"Salt gets to everything but yo soul Mon."

Words to live by.

The contraption in question has been around for at least ten years that I know of. Way back when I lived in the "rust belt" of Ohio, the people I know who have tried it had rust, the manufacture said they didn't install (ground every single peice of steel) it properly. I would say scam, but I am neither a chemical or metelurgical (is that a word???) engineer.


for $88 pressure wash your undercarrige twice a year, IMHO.

Westlies Silicon polish will do just as well for the paint, it has brought my black Ford Lightning back from the dead more then once.

[Steve Frankiewich]

Forgive me for this being so long, but theoretically, J. C. Whitney's product could work. Practically, it won't. We use a similar system in the pipeline industry to prevent steel pipelines from corroding. For simplicity's sake think of steel corroding like a battery discharging. Electricity flows from one terminal to the other, chemically altering the metals at each terminal. Rust, or oxide, is a product at the anode. The product JCW sells forces the current to flow the other way, as if you were "recharging" the battery, reversing or eliminating the corrosion process. In the pipeline business we call this cathodic protection. By maintaining a higher voltage potential between the pipe (cathode) and an artificial anode than exists between individual ions or compounds in the pipe, corrosion is prevented.

The fallacy with the JCW product is that there is no electrolyte to distribute the impressed current to the entire surface area of the car. In pipelines, moist soil acts as the electrolyte that carries electricity from the positively charged anode to the negatively charged pipe.

Without an electrolyte to distribute current to each square millimeter of the car body cathodic protection cannot be effectively applied. There will be a direct path from the anodes to the battery. Any steel off of this path will not be protected. Micro-corrosion cells, and eventually larger ones, will still be created.

As an aside, this is why corrosion is worse in wet locations and especially when salt is present. Water is the electrolyte necessary to start corrosion. Salt water is an even better electrolyte.

And in another aside, cathodic protection NEVER reverses existing corrosion or puts metal back, nor will it forever prevent corrosion. But a proper cathodically protected pipeline will easily and safely last 50 or 60 years.

I hope this helps.

[tmk]

Thanks To all. I have to agree. In theory it should work but in reality it would not. What about using a sacrificial zinc anode and cathode like a boat?

TMK
73 914S 2.1L

[Joe Bob]

A sacrificial anode only works when the metal is constantly under water. So unless your '14 is an unterzeeboot, fuggetaboutit...

[Germain]

TMK, whats with this obsession on rust? You do not say where you live, but I live in MI. And if there is a bigger rust spot in all the world then SE Mich, let me know. Point blank, keep the car clean, and accept the fact that rust gets on things. It means replacing stuff as you go, but thats part of the fun of any car...

To answer your questions, if there was a real good way to stop rust, Ford, GM, Dodge, Tyota (spelling), Porsche, BMW, the list goes on, would use it. They all use some form of a clear coat, just use that.

[tmk]

All the car manufactures use some kind of rust protection like galvanizing or other things. Unfortunately Porsche did not start doing any kind of rust protection until after about 1977. I am in the south SF bay area and my 1973 is all most rust free and I would like to keep it that way. We do not have a big rust problem but I am looking for anything that may help.
TMK
73 914S 2.1L

[Germain]

I would suggest keeping the car clean. Wash the underside often, and if/when rust builds up, remove it ASAP. Then put a coating (paint) on the bare metal. You doomed to get rust sooner or later. Maybe I don't see it as being a big deal because of where I live. Theres a 1997 Audi where I work that has rust under one of the wheel wells. Our 1994 Escort was/is rust free. It all depends on how you take care of the car/truck.