Not only can you save a little money by doing some work to your own car, you do also get the satisfaction of the end result, so it’s a win-win situation.

Feel free to contact me if you would like to add a D.I.Y project you’ve done to your VN SS.

Cleaning the boot seal is not hard at all.

Simply open your boot and lift the rubber boot seal off. Its that simple. Don’t bother removing it totally from the car, you can easily work around it.

Grab a rag and clean the groove in the boot seal. Seal – done.

Now, take that same rag and clean all around where the boot seal sits. Use either a dry rag or chamois to dry the metal surface. I like to polish the boot before I put the seal back on – Why? Because it makes future cleaning easier!

All up, this D.I.Y should only take you about an hour - at most. You’d probably only need to do it once a year as well. Only one hour per year to do a job that could possibly save you from a costly rust problem.

The photo’s below are self explanatory. Remember though, chamois that boot when you wash the car!

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The rear gearnish on the VN Commodore is widely known for it’s rust problem. It’s not necessarily the garnish that’s the problem ( it’s plastic ), the perpetrator of this whole problem is usually the nuts and bolts holding it onto the boot itself.

When you open your boot, you’ll see where to unscrew the garnish from the boot. Check the back of the garnish & the nuts and bolts holding it onto the boot and take whatever action needed to repair it – if it needs it, naturally.

As the photo’s below show on my VN SS, I have no rust problem, thankfully. The garnish itself was fine but for whatever reason, I didn’t photograph it.

Whilst the garnish was off the car I took the opportunity to polish the boot, yet another rust prevention measure.

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With your car on a flat level surface, preferably outside, jack the front of the car up and place wheel stands under it ( safety first ).

Remove the wheels and place them away from the car, out of your way.

With a strong cleaning agent, spray your wheel arches and clean them off with a high pressure gurney ( reason for being outside ).

Replace the the front wheels and then do the same to the rear. I’d recommend you let the arches dry overnight before applying the body deadener.

You have 2 options for applying the body deadener to your wheel arches -

• Aerosol Body Deadener
• Brushcote Body Deadener

I prefer to brush it on, rather than spray it. The choice though, is yours.

Applying body deadener to your wheel arches is time consuming, so if you decide to do it, make a day of it.

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The best way to describe what happens to the foam cushion is ’shrinkage’. Over the years, as it has been used, it loses its’ ’springiness’, causing the material to appear stretched.

Solution ? Very simple really. When you remove the ( lower part ) of the rear seat, you should place it upside down on a suitable surface so you don’t ruin the seat - preferably place it on your lounge room floor, on carpet. 

You will notice the metal frame and the ‘gaps’ between the frame and the foam cushion. When you see these ‘gaps’, you will understand what I mean by the ’shrinkage’ that I referred to earlier.

For this step, you will need some old clothes, or rags. Really though, you can use what you want so long as it does the job. Place the old clothes ( or whatever you are using ) behind the metal frame so as to fill up any ‘gaps’. 

I know that this is a no-frills way of doing this, but it works perfectly.

Once again, the photo’s I’ve provided below are self explanatory.  

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