So at the beginning of April I jacked up the rear of my fairly newly acquired 07 Freelander to remove the subframe and rear suspension to treat the surface rust that it is suffering from.

On removing the plastic arch covers it was clear that over the past 16 years the accumulated mud and road salt had taken its toll on the arches and rear underbody. Soooo I took a deep breath and made a start - it has taken be around 8 weekends to do the clean up, welding and painting to make it good. here are some picks of what I was presented with, I will post more of some of the completed work later as I have been busy working on it. I am used to attacking rust on my other land rovers so out came the angle grinder and needle scaler to really dig out and cut out the rust where necessary which took a lot of hours. There were a few rust holes to deal with on the rear chassis legs and at the top of the suspension turrets and at the back of the sills, interestingly the car had been wax oiled so it was only rusting from the outside in thank goodness. The pics make it look worse than it really was but it really needed doing. Once cleaned back to shiny bare metal I used 3 coats of zink primer and 3 coats of nice single pack paint which I know works well as I used it 20 years ago on a series chassis and its still holding up.

I will post more pics tomorrow of some of the completed work and as I re assemble it cheers

This is where i am at the moment..nearly ready for reassembly

Looking good. This interest me as I suspect I need to do something similar to mine at some point and this gives me an idea of where I need to go looking.

Out of interest, what make primer and paint are you using? FL2 2007 2.2d Auto SE. Baltic Blue.

I use Teamac single pack zink primer undercoat and their topcoat in various colours but I use black for the underside and some land rover green for the subframe which i had left over. I used about 2 litres of undercoat and 2 litres of topcoat although you would only need 1ltr or each for the wheelarches i expect. I got mine from mole valley farmers at about £25 a tin, it has served me really well over the past 25 years of using it so i will stick with it. its all in the preparation of the metal tbh

Thanks. FL2 2007 2.2d Auto SE. Baltic Blue.

Fair bit of work. How was the subframe when you removed it? Just surface rust? Assume you'll protect it internally as well? Landrover - turning owners into mechanics since 1948

2014 Orkney grey Freelander SD4 GS.
2004 Zambezi silver Discovery 2 Td5 (Gone)
1963 Surf blue Morris Mini Minor Super de Luxe (my little toy)

The rear subframe was fine, I used about a litre of waxoil in the inside of the subframe, I thinned it first with white spirit by 20 % and used a shultz gun with a sparay mist nozzle attachment so with my compressor set at 60 psi it gave a really nice fine mist which got everywhere cheers

Plan to do similar to my subframe assuming there is access to do so while it's still attached to the car? Don't need to remove it (yet) but probably worth removing the wheel arch liners. Landrover - turning owners into mechanics since 1948

2014 Orkney grey Freelander SD4 GS.
2004 Zambezi silver Discovery 2 Td5 (Gone)
1963 Surf blue Morris Mini Minor Super de Luxe (my little toy)

yes you could easily waxoil it while its on the car

yes - I waxoyled my subframes when the car was about 2 years old. Jules

I am at the moment gathering parts to attack certain parts on the car the rear subframe being one, front arms another, will take a look behind the wheel arch liners too, did my R40 Tourer rear subframe and arms etc last year, i managed to pick up a full subframe from Spain with all upper and lower arms attached like new, so replaced it after treating it to several coats of paint i had spare.

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I may change out the FL2 subframe the same.

I will follow this thread with great interest.