Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

 It's kind of hard to believe. but look at the difference!

There was a blistered, rusted area on top of the left fender. I used a putty knife to scrape off loose paint and rust.  Then I used a hand held wire brush on the metal. The metal underneath looked terrible, could it even be saved? 

I brushed the loose debris off then covered the area with vinegar saturated rags. I kept it wet for an hour or more, then let it sit over night. The area pictured above is on the top of the fender over the left headlamp.

The photo is actually of an area on the roof. The vinegar causes the rust
to bubble up from the surface.

The area underneath was now covered with a fluffy red crust of rust. I hit it with the wire wheel then repeated the entire procedure. After the second treatment I also hit it with a palm sander to smooth the transition edges a bit. 

This is after the second treatment. Wow! What a difference. 

Here's a spot on the sunroof.

The process works quite well. You can see dark areas on the sheet metal which is probably rust in the pores. The underlying metal doesn't look like it was ever that smooth. It would be best to have the metal perfectly clean and free of any rust, but that might take some blasting in the future. I need  something that I can do to preserve the surface, right now. 

I used a spray can treatment called Rustoleum Rust Reformer. It is one of those rust converting and stabilizing coatings that will allow you to paint over the rusted area. Yes, it is another one of those miracles in a can!

This has the general household use label, there is also another label that 
is used for their automotive product line. I was initially fooled by the picture of the chair.

Yesterday I spent hours combing the internet looking for suggestions on how to manage surface rusted panels. I ended up on the HAMB and read pages of discussions about the efficacy of POR 15 and other rust treatments. Ideally, surface rust should be removed entirely, the metal might need to be media blasted to clean out the pores. If not, then the hidden rust will likely make it's way back up through the surface over time. 

Blasting would be the answer in a perfect world and I'm not eliminating it as a possibility, sometime in the future. I wasn't trying to render the metal perfectly smooth, I was trying to remove  the majority of the surface rust and to protect the surface until it can be dealt with in a more comprehensive manner. I wasn't trying to remove all the old paint either, just give the Rustoleum product a suitable surface to stick to. 

This Rust Reformer is designed to protect the underlying surface from the intrusion of moisture, thereby preventing the continuous formation of more rust. So it should be a moisture resistant covering, unlike regular spray bomb primer. Hopefully this will protect and preserve the car's body, which is my goal after all. 

I'd used POR 15 in the past and found that it was a very good product. The POR paint really sticks to a rusted surface and is very tough. That can be a problem if the surface is something that you might want to paint with a glossy finish in the future. Brushing it on is okay for a chassis or suspension part, but it needs to be sprayed on with a compressor powered gun to lay down a smooth enough finish for glossy paint.  It isn't too easy to sand smooth after it cures. No way I would try to spray that at home, instead of in an actual spray booth, these types of paints and thinners are quite toxic and hazardous when sprayed.

In the Bay Area you are prohibited from painting your car in your driveway or garage. You cannot use a spray gun to paint your car, theoretically you could paint your entire car with spray cans, but there may be a limit on how much of the body can be painted. Spray cans are kind of a gray area. You can spray garden furniture, bicycles, file cabinets and even appliances. 

The best thing is not to come under official scrutiny. Spray can paint is quite aromatic, and using a lot of it in intense periods will be noticeable in most neighborhoods. At least to your next door neighbor. Hopefully, they are not a "Karen!" If they are the type that is "sensitive" to these type of activities, they might call the fire dept. or even the police dept. to report the use of a hazardous material episode. I'd rather not have that discussion.

At my age I'm smart enough to use a face mask ( got plenty of those around!) ) to prevent inhaling overspray, ventilation is provided by the great outdoors. 

I am not using many power tools in this project. There's my hand held drill, my palm sander, and my small shop vac. These are being used sparingly. I'm sure my city has prohibitions about running an auto repair or auto body business out of your garage, but of course some hobby activity is permitted. Again, it's best not raise any red flags, you don't want to be on the city's radar. 

It looks like an improvement to me!

As I said I'm not trying to repaint my car, I'm just trying to provide some protection to the sheet metal. There's going to be a lot of matte black areas over the car, My thought is to blend it all together with regular black primer over what's left of the original areas of paint still on the top surfaces of the vehicle. It will end up as a kind of black over blue two tone. It should look really cool, or at least it will no longer look like a "rust bucket" that inspires revulsion. ..... Maybe not.