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Hi,
I know this is a common theme for Brumby owners as 3 out of the four I have had suffer from it. At the front of the tray in dead centre (between the two drains) there will be or will be sooner or later be a rust spot that if left un checked will end up looking like this one.



Yup, this one festered away and I failed to notice it when buying the car, oh it was not a hole then, it was caked rust flakes but this is how it looks NOW after I went crazy with my nibbler trying to find the edges that were still okay.



So what to do? patch it or think laterally and fit something into that location that would not look too out of place?

So shoot me down in flames, it had occurred that a slimline drain fitting could be put in there under the pretext that it is there to drain the tray when it gets flooded with rain?

http://www.bunnings.com.au/boston-stain ... -_p4750026

As my MIG welding skills are quite poor I have not considered patching it with new metal as the clean up and efforts to blend it in led me to think of other ways to fill the hole and make it a feature

Anyway, if you have a Brumby, have a good hard look at your tray NOW, there is a metal plate under that location that is harbouring moisture and a home for RUST... get out the fish oil and attack it before it is to late (like mine)

Regards,
Peter.

Thanks for the warning. ☺

Look from under the tray, I'll guarantee that there will be rust ther unless your Brumby has had the luxury of living in a garage its whole life.

Both brumbies in my family have rust there.

As for a fix I've seen one with a flat plate siliconed and pop riveted in place, other full of bog. Ultimately learn how to weld light gauge material and cut that out the weld in a new panel

Cheers

Bennie

Mine is remarkably clear of rust for a farm vehicle (touches wooden items repeatedly) and looks like it has lived in a dry shed for much of its life. Unfortunately so has the local pigeons as it has some badly eaten spots on the roof and bonnet. I have checked many of the usually suspect areas and found nothing. I'll have to take a closer look under there and apply some preventive measures.

Paint burn only or exposed metal from the bird droppings?

If exposed metal clean up the rust and seal it before it gets too bad!

Cheers

Bennie

I would also suggest to look under for fuel or brake lines !

One of those retained pop up basin plugs be just the thing, add some bling

El_Freddo wrote:Paint burn only or exposed metal from the bird droppings?

If exposed metal clean up the rust and seal it before it gets too bad!

Cheers

Bennie

A bit of both unfortunately. Such a pity as the paint is really good in general. I'll be cleaning up the worst of it and lining up a respray in future.

Well after some agonising over what to use and a need to fill that jagged hole, I stumbled across a common sink strainer, these are slip line and made of stainless and happen to be a perfect size fro my hole


after a bit of trimming up I ended up with clean metal and something to plug the hole and stop any injuries when the dogs are in the tray



I used two stainless pop rivets and sealed the joint with silicone after it had been coated in Zinc pain. Next job it to squirt in some fish oil around the seems.

Peter.

Glad to see yo are happy with it, certainly the dogs are safer.

Good to keep an eye on it long term , as dissimilar metals in contact with each other and a little moisture can do surprisingly strange things. Add in some doggy sweat etc, and who knows

if you ever re-do it, I'd think about putting a non-conductive gasket between the two , just some clark rubber , inner tube etc.

in any case its still a good solution , well done.