Hi Everyone, some advice needed..

Hi Everyone,

Hi all,

Thanks again for the warm welcome at my first meeting last month!

I’ve recently taken on my late uncle’s Triumph Stag, which he owned for many years. It was fully refurbished in the mid-90s and driven until around 2002, after which it was parked in a garage at his home. I was lucky enough to be given the car recently and I’m now working to get it back on the road.Im based in Kinnegad myself.

This is my first restoration project and I’m very much learning as I go, so it’s been a bit of a steep learning curve! I’ve managed to get the engine running again (it’s a straight-six conversion), and I’ve had help fitting a new clutch master cylinder—so it moves under its own power now. However, I’ve currently got no brakes, so a brake master cylinder repair or replacement is next on the list.

Over the weekend I made a rookie mistake while trying to jack the car up—I accidentally placed the jack under the outrigger instead of the chassis rail. I've attached a photo showing the damage. I’m now concerned this might be a sign of more severe rust than I initially thought.

Could anyone advise on the best way to deal with this? Would it be better to replace the outrigger section entirely? And if so, does anyone have an idea of how expensive this might be if done by a welder? Whats a normal/acceptable amount of rust on the underside of a car of this age? Im in a very tight garage now so hard to get a good look at the underside of the car.

Any guidance or recommendations would be hugely appreciated!

Donal

Hi Donal, the car looks very good, quite solid body by the looks of the engine compartment and on the transporter. Usually thats a good sign, they often tend to be visibly rusty overall when they are bad, however your's looks like It has underbody schutz or underseal on it and that tends to hide the scale of a rust problem. Its hard to know if that stuff is a good or a bad thing to have on an old car, sometimes the car is almost hollowed out with rust underneath the underseal, other times the underbody can be almost pristine when the underseal is taken off and you'd be almost saying without the underseal this thing wouldnt have survived! As Derek said its very hard to be sure from photos but honeslty the news here mightn't be great, the underseal is definitely compromised in that general area where you've done the damage, usually once that layer of underseal is broken the rust works away unseen underneath it and where the jack went through it looks like that is what happened, the outrigger or chassis was just paper thin under the Schutz. Looking at the photo it looks like the floor under the chassis/outrigger section is gone as well, the opposite end of the outrigger doesnt look great either. Again as both Derek and Stephen said its only one photo of a small area, rust can be localised but more usually its spread by the time we find it under body sealant, definitlely something you should investigate a bit further. Jack it up, have a falrly ruthless poke around with a large screw driver and small hammer, you may as well be quite ruthless about it as you need to know if there's a problem here, where you poke and hammer it scrape off any damaged underseal and repaint with a fresh underseal. You'll quickly learn to discern the difference in sound from the hammer between good metal and rusty metal, not huge blows just enough to get either a nice "DING" or dull "Thud" and no bounce, or poke and push very hard with the screwdriver. Hopefully you get lucky, dont know if this will encourage you or no but I've two cars at the moment which had underseal on, similar years etc, one is almost completely solid in remarkable condition, the other is absolutley red rotten, it can be a lottery.

I dont know what to say to you about getting someone to do welding on it for you, I dont know who one goes to, maybe some of the other lads will know someone, I think currently thats a bit of a nightmare tbh. If this turns out to be not bad then looking at that underseal it would be best to treat the underside to prevent things getting any worse, as a minimum give it a coating of Lanolin or something like that. Google that, there's loads of Youtube videos covering it, its a good product for preservation in this situation and where a full strip out isn't being contemplated.

Niall

Replies

Niall Power June 11, 2025 at 5:55pm

Hi Donal, the car looks very good, quite solid body by the looks of the engine compartment and on the transporter. Usually thats a good sign, they often tend to be visibly rusty overall when they are bad, however your's looks like It has underbody schutz or underseal on it and that tends to hide the scale of a rust problem. Its hard to know if that stuff is a good or a bad thing to have on an old car, sometimes the car is almost hollowed out with rust underneath the underseal, other times the underbody can be almost pristine when the underseal is taken off and you'd be almost saying without the underseal this thing wouldnt have survived! As Derek said its very hard to be sure from photos but honeslty the news here mightn't be great, the underseal is definitely compromised in that general area where you've done the damage, usually once that layer of underseal is broken the rust works away unseen underneath it and where the jack went through it looks like that is what happened, the outrigger or chassis was just paper thin under the Schutz. Looking at the photo it looks like the floor under the chassis/outrigger section is gone as well, the opposite end of the outrigger doesnt look great either. Again as both Derek and Stephen said its only one photo of a small area, rust can be localised but more usually its spread by the time we find it under body sealant, definitlely something you should investigate a bit further. Jack it up, have a falrly ruthless poke around with a large screw driver and small hammer, you may as well be quite ruthless about it as you need to know if there's a problem here, where you poke and hammer it scrape off any damaged underseal and repaint with a fresh underseal. You'll quickly learn to discern the difference in sound from the hammer between good metal and rusty metal, not huge blows just enough to get either a nice "DING" or dull "Thud" and no bounce, or poke and push very hard with the screwdriver. Hopefully you get lucky, dont know if this will encourage you or no but I've two cars at the moment which had underseal on, similar years etc, one is almost completely solid in remarkable condition, the other is absolutley red rotten, it can be a lottery.

I dont know what to say to you about getting someone to do welding on it for you, I dont know who one goes to, maybe some of the other lads will know someone, I think currently thats a bit of a nightmare tbh. If this turns out to be not bad then looking at that underseal it would be best to treat the underside to prevent things getting any worse, as a minimum give it a coating of Lanolin or something like that. Google that, there's loads of Youtube videos covering it, its a good product for preservation in this situation and where a full strip out isn't being contemplated.

Niall
Stephen Grant June 11, 2025 at 10:54am

Hmmmm so typically the rust you see is only a portion of the real issue, a very firm prod of the area and surrounding area with screw driver should give you a sense of what your're dealing with. A wire brush attachment to a drill / angle grinder can also help to expose the metal/rust but scrape off the underseal first.
You will need someone handy with a welder to help here but the main thing is to identify the extent of the rot.
Donal Hynes June 10, 2025 at 6:13pm

Thanks Derek, Will try to get someone to look at it for me thanks.
Derek Carroll June 9, 2025 at 9:54pm

Hi Donal

It's hard to know from photos how bad the rust is. Best advice is get someone with experience to check it out before you go any further. Unfortunately rust is the enemy of old cars. And most difficult and expensive issue to repair.

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