undersealing part 2:
right your not finished yet, not by a long way
you NEED to get the arches immaculatuly clean, anyold underseal under there is probably peeling away by now, or like me there was very little to start with. take your wheel off (with it off the floor, obiously) and get your weapon of choice, either a variable hose, power washer, and some sort of cleaner with a few diffrent brushes. (p prefer pain brushes as they are soft and dont dig into paint etc)
so, armed with your hose blast that wheel well competly clear, most of the underseaal on there will simply just lift away, keep at it until all the loose stuff and dirt is removed, make sure you get the entire area as clean from dirt as possiable, use your brushes and gear to agitate it out, i also used autoglym motorcycle cleaner as its a de-greaser and it does not stink like crap. again MAKE SURE you get every bit of dirt off the area.
you should now be left with somthing like this:
your not finished yet though, you still need to do the INSIDE of the sills. honda fitted drainage holes all along the bottom of the lower sills. those that are familiar with honda rot know hondas rot INSIDE OUT. the rust almost always starts internally. the drainage holes are a good idea, though there a two edged sword, they let water out, but they also let crap in. moisture forms here and causes rust, also i think alot of you will be shocked by how much crap actully is already inside them.
if you have a decent high end powerwasher you probably have some attatchments that will let you get a probe inside here to make life easyer, if like me you dont you can cheap out with just a normal hose pipe. take the spray gun off the end so you just have the hose, get a wine bottle cork and push it in the end blocking the tube.
get a needle and your lighter and heat the needle, and poke holes in the pipe just bofore the cork, you want them all around the pipe section. test it by turning the hose on and you should now have a multi angeled high pressure sprayer
(for free to, if you dont have a cork go by a bottle of wine and drink it, yes...i am encouraging you to get drunk..you know you want to
)
in the rear arch you have a rubber grommet that is painted over, there IS already a slit in it, poke your finger in and pull the grommet out, you now have an acess hole large enougth to get your high pressure spray in there. shove your hose/washer contraption in the hole as far in as it will go, though do not it will NOT go all the way down unlike me you have a think hose pipe
. shove it in and turn you hose on:
GROMMET:
INSERT HOSE HERE:
now twist the hose and slowly bring it out, you should see alot of dirt, stones etc come out of the drain holes along the arch. i collect about 2 hand full or small stones from both sills (not to mention the enire ammount of dirt in there to!
DRAIN HOLES:
if your crafty you can get some small flashlights into the drain holes and look through the grommet hole where you had the hose and have a peek around. mine showed a little bit of surface rust, but for a car thats 15 years old i was quite impressed.
there is nothing else you can do today im aftaid. its no good undersealing away as you dont want to apply waxoly (or your choise of rust proofing) over water. leave the car to stand until morning. i do reccomend just running the car down the street and back with the skirts off if you live on a sloping drive like me, just to ensure any stood water drains out.
NEXT: Applying the underseal/waxoly etc.