Preventative Measures

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS A PRODUCT
THAT PROMISES TO PROLONG THE LIFE OF YOUR
4WD. AS WE FOUND AFTER CHECKING OUT
COUNTERACT, THE RUST DEMON'S IN FOR ONE
ALMIGHTY WALLOP

l RUST IS A BUGGER. In fact, it ranks as the worst possible deteriorating factor in the automotive world. Engines can be replaced or rebuilt, suspensions can be re-bushed and tensioned, even the interior can be re-upholstered but if a vehicle's got severe rust, it's cactus. Kaput, dig a big hole and finish the job because your vehicle has already started by returning to its natural state.

It used to be economically viable to effect some rust repairs to some vehicles - cutting out the rot and replacing it with new steel - but these days, with modern vehicle construction utilizing hidden panels and rounded corners, it's rarely worth doing unless you've got a classic. Today's vehicles have many hidden areas vulnerable to rust; places you can't see where the panels are overlapped, spot-welded joins or seamed. And, of course, modern panels are made from thinner steel.

Then there's the bugbear of rust affecting other components. Rusted bolts and pins on the suspension will snap, making simple repairs grow into expensive propositions. Yep, no way out of it, rust is a bugger!

That's the situation and as a four wheel driver, you're no doubt more aware of corrosion than most other vehicle owners. After all, for corrosion to begin, you need what's called an 'oxidizing environment', a place where moisture and bare metal can combine to begin the electro-chemical reaction that slowly returns the iron content of steel to its natural state - iron ore, Ferric Oxide Fe203 or, as we know it, rust.
And that's about where most of us off-roaders prefer to spend our time in an oxidizing environment, be it the beach, where the salt content of the water puts the electrochemical reaction into overdrive, or the bush, with mud puddles and creeks keeping your extensive under-vehicle dirt collection moist. Even in our dry outback, salt lakes remind us our whole country used to be under salty water.
As most of our readers are adventurous types, rust is something we have all got to come to terms with eventually.

'They don't promise to rid your life of rust forever, but if it can be retarded to the degree we believe possible, then there isn't a four wheel drive in the country that wouldn't benefit from a CounterAct fitment!'

Conventional rustproofing treatments have been based on the sound philosophy that, if you coast the metal with a thick and flexible coating, it will inhibit rust growth by keeping moisture away from the metal. Simple and guaranteed to work, as long as every possible seam, surface or area is coated thoroughly. One stone chip, one drill hole or screwdriver bite and corrosion gets a start, eating away at the steel content of your vehicle.
With hidden panels and seams, with things like the gutter line and the thousands of spot welds present in modern vehicles, no coating can protect a vehicle if it's exposed to salt or moisture in the long run. Even galvanizing will break down eventually. Which is why we decided to take a good look at CounterAct's electronic rust prevention system. Most people have heard all sorts of tales about electronic rust prevention and they're not always good! Unfortunately, that's because boat technology - which takes advantage of the electrochemical reaction to direct all corrosion to a cathode - was utilized for land-based vehicles in most of these early systems. Good on paper, there was a major glitch - boats spend their lives in water, the medium required to make the cathodic system work - for the same reason your battery requires water for the power to conduct between cells. So bung that system onto a car and it's not going to work unless you park off the end of the wharf...

Then there were the shonky operators, the short timers in for a quick kill who'd take advantage of the fact that if rust was an electro-chemical reaction, some form of electricity would reverse that reaction. The theory was fine but in practice these systems did nothing except cost.

Enter CounterAct. Back in 1988, an American inventor took out a patent on an electronic rust inhibiting process. It was laboratory-tested, run through quality control systems and then released onto the market in the USA, where it was immediately successful. However it took nearly a decade for the same system to be structured for release herein Australia.

A CounterAct unit is best installed by a technician who understands its operation in order to gain maximum benefits. On the Landcruiser this has meant placing it to the rear of the right wheel arch with a capacitive coupler pad on the firewall and another diagonally  opposite at the rear of the vehicle. Most vehicles require only a single coupler in the engine compartment.

The CounterAct electronic rust prevention system uses a process called 'capacitive coupling' to apply a measurable current to every metallic component of a vehicle that's earthed to the battery. A small unit, usually mounted on the firewall, detects the amount of power required to create an electrostatic field that will keep the metal structure electron-rich and then provides that power, reducing the ion mobility that's the basis of the corrosion process, The unit is fed from the vehicle's battery, drawing about as much current as an LCD clock.

So the system operates by applying one of the principles of electrochemistry - that an oxidation reaction can be slowed or retarded by creating a surplus of electrons to the metal from a supplementary source. That means that every possible seam, spot-weld, bolt, screw or panel that's earthed to the vehicle is protected from corrosion by this surplus of electrons. Parts that would be impossible to coat - like the inside of your exhaust pipe, the roof gutters, multi-folded panel seams - all come under the influence of this electronic field. As such, there's even an advantage to fitting it to an older, already rusted vehicle because the CounterAct unit will slow down corrosion that's already begun.

Underneath this Landcruiser although it lives in a salty environment, There's not a sign of corrosion to be seen!

Does it work? We inspected CounterAct's own four wheel drive, a two year old Land Cruiser running their 4WD unit (slightly different to the car units) and found that its paintwork, even where stone-chipped, was remarkably rust-free, especially for a coastal vehicle. In an obvious comparison, Mark Stevens, MD of CounterAct, pointed out two screw close to each other on the front grille. One was rust-free, the other rusty. The rusty Phillips head was holding two plastic components together - so it wasn't earthed to the vehicle and therefore wasn't protected.

Note these two grill retaining screws. The corroded one holds two plastic parts together and does not share a common ground with the rest of the vehicle and is therefore not protected

Impressive stuff, but not necessarily proof. However, delving underneath the vehicle - where it was obvious it hadn't been cleaned or polished, owing to an accumulation of road grime - and we couldn't find any evidence at all of the surface rust you'd expect in a beach run vehicle. Things were looking really good!

And they got better when we asked around the district. It seems the Surfers Paradise Surf Life Saving Club, who operate a Ford Courier four wheel drive that's constantly either on the beach or right next to it, are very impressed with CounterAct. Despite using conventional rustproofing techniques, their vehicles were rusting very quickly and requiring constant turnover with the consequent costs. Since fitting the CounterAct system, they report "no apparent corrosion at all, while the paintwork retains an 'as new' appearance." They went on to say that the existing corrosion (on the tray swapped from an older vehicle onto the new cab/chassis) "does not appear to have advanced." That includes a set of steel Sunraysia wheels that have spent the best part of the last six years buried in sand!

Very impressive. A few calls later and we found similar testimonials coming from all over the place, from the mechanical superintendent at Telfer mines to the food van vendor on Fraser Island, everybody who'd tried CounterAct was prepared to vouch for its effectiveness - and under some of the harshest conditions you can imagine.

Obviously, there's only one way to fully evaluate the CounterAct system, and that's to fit it to a vehicle and monitor any future corrosion. We're doing that right now but the fact is, that the longer you look at this technology, the deeper you dig both scientifically and from folks who are already using it, the better CounterAct looks.

They don't promise to rid your life of rust forever, but if it can be retarded to the degree we believe is possible, then there isn't a four wheel drive in the country that wouldn't benefit from a CounterAct fitment.