VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - GENERAL Body - Sheet Metal, Paint & Wood Getting the rust of a body.

Hi all,

there is a fair chance I can get my hands on an early 30's Chevy Truck project!!! I don't believe it until I see it, but planning the resto is underway. My first major issue is surface rust. The body is covered in a thin layer of surface rust. Since I am in the Netherlands, chances are that if I don't cure it right away the sheet metal is gone next week...

My first idea is a Scotch Bright pad in a polisher machine, clean everything up, wire brush for the nooks and crannies, and set the lot in primer.

Then I read about stuff like this:
http://www.rust-cure.com/
Sounds to good to be true. Anyone with good experiences with such products? Preferably ones available in Europe / the Netherlands?

Cheers,

Hugo

Surface rust can be tackled any number of ways. Abrasion is one with several ways to abrade. You can sand, wire brush or media blast. You can chemically treat it with a rust converter. Pitted rust and rust through needs to be cut out and the metal replaced. A conventional primer/surfacer won't stop rust from returning. It's been a number of years (decades actually) since I've earned a living with a paint gun so I'm not up to speed on all modern materials but one that I know keeps rust at bay is an epoxy etch primer. The body shop that did the restoration on my '38 used that & they told me they could store the panels at the bottom of a swimming pool and they wouldn't rust. Good luck with your project.

I have been told that after you grind the rust off and are down to bare metal, you should not shoot a primer coat if you intend to store the metal for more than a few days because the primer is porous and meant to hold the color paint you shoot on top of it. They say if you don't cover the primer with a color coat the primer will absorb moisture and if you wait too long to paint it you will have to grind the primer off before shooting a new coat of primer and then the color coats of paint.
My question is this: Assuming you can not do a full paint job after you have ground your way down to bare metal, what paint would you use to best preserve the now rust free metal and keep it from rusting? Just a color coat? A coat of primer and a cheap color coat? Some other wonderful, magical product?

That was my point with the conventional primer/surfacer Jim. It's not adequate to keep moisture away from the metal where an epoxy etch primer is. The restoration of my '38 took several years in three distinct phases. The paint job was phase three so I drove it for over 3 years with only flat black tinted epoxy etch primer & had nary a hint of rush show up. Below is the coupe in it's primer livery.

Hi Tiny,
Good to hear about the epoxy etch primer. Nice car!