Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

 Rust never sleeps, at least that's how the old saying goes.

My Mark slept for 25 years, but not in the best bed. 

Looking at the decklid and roof, the lighter red areas are splotches of primer that was applied years ago. The darker red area is rust. 

I had previously washed and polished the painted areas. The top of the hood and
left fender have noticeable rust. Picture taken approx. three years ago.

Areas of rust on the top and deck lid are apparent. 

I need to do something to clean up the sheet metal, stop the further encroachment of new rust, and preserve the body of the car. If I could get the car painted or at least primered in a single color, that would be a notable improvement. 

There's a lot of intact paint left on the sides.

The sides of the car don't look too bad, it's the top surfaces that are the worst. Could I remove the surface rust, stabilize the metal and cover the areas with spray bomb primer?

I could sand and wire brush the surface and see how that works. 

That's not a bad idea, but as we all know rust seeps into the pores of the metal and can re-emerge over time. 

I thought that it might be a good idea to chemically remove the rust. I'd used plain old vinegar to remove rust from small objects like tools and it's quite effective, but trying to do large portions of a car body?

Vinegar is a safe, non hazardous, non regulated material, very cheap too. So I proceeded to experiment.

I went out to the car, selected a rusty area then rubbed on it with a vinegar soaked rag, Sure enough the rust started to dissolve  and transfer to the cloth. I kept the area saturated, and let it sit for fifteen  minutes of so. I found areas that I could rub down to bare metal.

I got a brass wire brush and scrubbed against a dry area, the surface rust layer broke down. I wiped it off then treated it to the saturated cloth, letting it set for fifteen to twenty minutes then wiped it down. This was even more effective.

Too bad that I couldn't soak the entire car in a big tank, that is a process used for professional high dollar metal prep. The stripped body is submerged in a tank hooked up to a negative electrical current, and a hot caustic chemical mix dissolves all rust, bondo, sealers, and other fillers. It leaves the solid metal unharmed. 

I remember reading in an old article in a hot rod magazine describing how brush on chemical paint strippers could be used. It recommended covering the slathered on stripper with plastic sheets to keep it from drying out too quickly and keep it more effective. I'd used paint stripper in the past and it's a dangerous, awful smelling, process that results in some terrible waste products. The smell alone would have my neighbors calling the fire dept.'s hazardous material team.

I needed to come up with a better plan.

So here's my process: 

Here's a section of the hood that I haven't worked on yet.
I'm going to scrape the peeling paint back until I find tight bonding paint.

Some of the metal that was covered by paint is still shiny.

First thing I did was to mask any trim near the area that I'm working on.
Later I'm going to try to remove that hood trim.

I'm using a wire brush chucked in my drill. The idea is to break through
the crust to allow the vinegar to more easily penetrate the surface.

First I wet down the area then lay saturated rags directly 
on the area.

 

When I remove the dried rags, the dissolved rust is left as a red crust.
I then wire brush the area. 

You can see that the brushed area looks pretty clean.
I plan to treat each area twice. 

I had been experimenting with the front part of the hood.
It looks pretty good. Soon I'll hit it with a sander and feather the edges back. 

This is a labor intensive operation, but it's pretty easy to do. I estimate that I'm going to need at least four or five gallons of vinegar. I can just dispose of the dirty rags in the trash, nothing hazardous about vinegar. The smell is noticeable but quickly dissipates. I don't want my neighbors calling the fire dept. over strange chemical odors. Hey! I'm just mixing up a big bucket of salad dressing!

My plan is to fully complete an area, treat it, then primer it. I'll work my way around the car in sections.

I do have some concerns, so I will use some POR Metal Prep on the area after I neutralize the vinegar and clean the area. I'm hoping the POR will clean out the pores of the metal and allow the primer to bond. I'm hoping that I won't find that the primer blisters and peels. We'll see. 

I'll have more to report in the weeks to follow.