How bad is too bad when it comes to rust on a frame......??

[LikeClockwork]

I refer the court to exhibit A.....viewtopic.php?f=6&t=340816

How bad does rust have to be to render a frame dangerous, or is it simply a case of removing it as well as possible and just riding it with gay abandon...? Can you ever know how far it has penetrated and the damage that is potentially lurking, just by eye alone...?

I ask as I don't have a lot of free time at the mo and I don't want to be wasting what little I have on a non starter.... :facepalm:

Cheers in advance chaps! :mrgreen:

 

[fettler]

I think that looks cosmetically worse than it is structurally. I`m not slim but I wouldn`t let it bother me too much. A good wire brushing/blasting will reveal how much surface pitting there is & you`d have to evaluate how much material has been lost. A bit of nail varnish for touching up, available in 1000`s of colours for less than a quid will stop it getting worse. A Cinder cone won't be made with ultra light wafer thin tubing, probably about 1.6mm at tube ends. I think internal corrosion often causes more destruction.

 

[LikeClockwork]

Re:

Thanks, pretty much exactly my thinking! Internally it really didn't seem too bad, and hopefully the waxoyl treatment will have halted any further deterioration. I guess some dedicated elbow grease with the old wire brush and then a further assessment is going to be the only way of really knowing what is going on externally....

 

[daugs]

Re:

I'm not an expert on bike frames but do spend some of my time messing around with old land rovers, so have some experience with rust, the trick is to get back to proper metal so some serious wire brushing is required I think, while on a landy I'd frequently get the grinder out (just how long can it take to get one bolt undone...) maybe not on a bike frame.

While making no comment as to how long you should be riding the frame, I've been amazed on several occasions when seeing the level of rust on old landies and an old mini of mine that the car has not folded completely. Thinking if it were to fail as to what would happen, I'd be more concerned if on the top / head tube joint, but then any bike failing is not going to be pretty.

Guess it would be interesting to see some really bad examples where frame is not being saved and "investigating" further.

 

[LikeClockwork]

Re:

Ah...Minis....Landies....now there's something that knows how to rot to a very high standard....

Presumably, if you had all the money in the world there is some form of engineering stress testing or x ray that could be done, could be very interesting to see the results of that on some frames I've owned in the past!

 

[player]

Re:

As said above If you want to be a bit more controlled with the sanding though I'd use some wet and dry pads that you can get from any diy store or Amazon.

I'm doing exactly the same job as you but used the pads instead to get down to the frame material and you can cut the pads into slithers to make it even easier.

 

[retrobikeguy]

Jeez, I've seen a lot worse fella, get it cleaned up as above and see if you find a hole.

RBG

 

[MarinMartin]

Re:

if you can poke it and your finger doesn't go through it's fine

seriously though. my muirwoods and palisades went like that. nothing structural just makes it look tatty.

 

[LikeClockwork]

Re:

Thanks guys, yep I think a really good clean up as soon as I get the time is what's needed, then take it from there. Fairly confident this hasn't got to the making a hole I can poke my finger through stage.... Yet.

 

[Osella]

Re:

Looks good, if you've managed to clean those bridges back to the metal without uncovering any holes in them then that's sounding like it's 'good' structurally.

It's an odd one, but oxidization of metals does to a point preserve them, so if it is just surface rust that brushes/scrubs off, and the bike's not going to be taken down any Alpine black D runs, then it looks good!
And this is coming from someone who just got this:

crimped stay & all (daft kick-stand someone had attached previously..) and I plan to use it if/until it gives up.. but I'm not thinking that's going to be anytime soon.