I have all the holes welded up on my windshield channel and am getting ready to weld in the lower cowl piece to replace the rust that was there before. There are a million different rust stopper paints out there, and I have listed 3 above, plus epoxy primer. I used the por15 on my battery tray. Hella glossy black, seems good but so far all it does is set on my shelf. I bought some rust bullet to use on my interior / trunk area after I am done in there, but so far it is still sealed in the quart can. Last weekend at the portland swap meet I see the zero rust distributer. Talk to him awhile and he shows me all the pictures of how his product is the best and I decide to buy a couple cans of spray paint since I didn't have any spray cans specifically for rusty areas. I ground down, wire brushed and sanded everything I could, used a rust killer / converter product to turn everything left black and then just sprayed my window channel with the zero rust. It is a flat finish. Didn't expect that. o No: So, is there any one product that will protect those window channels better than any other, or are they all selling the same snake oil, I mean paint? uzzled: I know that the only rust killer is to sand blast and remove it, but come on, not every project justifies that. I don't intend on stripping this thing bare and blasting it, there are just some areas that need a blast of paint and a little prayer. ray: Besides, this thing has lasted 40 years now, I just want another 20. So, for under the trunk deck, up inside the sail panels, under the dash, inner fender below battery tray, windshield channels and such. What is my best bet for areas that I can't reach well? I will reach up with a wire brush and rag to wipe down, but I need to spray over surface rust. What is best for to prevent future incursion?
In '92-'93 I used PPG's epoxy primer on the front & back of all bare sheetmetal & patch panels after everything was welded up, even the body filler went over that instead of bare steel. It's been almost been twenty years and the bodywork has help up beautifully. Devon
Most of your POR-15 type products don't actually kill rust, they seal it so no moisture can get to it anymore. Surpisingly, it works in most cases but there are limitations. If you try to slop it over badly rusted and scaled rust like you quite often see on frames without at least wire brushing it as best you can then you're destined to fail. Anyway, my choice would be to get it as clean as possible and use epoxy primer, then just scuff and paint over that and you'll be fine.
This leads to another whole conundrum then. Epoxy primer isn't really conducive to mixing up little 2 oz portions to spray on and then clean everything up. I sneak in work on this a little a day and maybe 3-4 hours on the weekend. So after doing as much prep as possible on the small areas like the window channel, I don't think I should leave it as bare metal which will get all kinds of containments on it. Should I just spray it or brush whatever I have on it for now, and when I have all the little areas done, then just mix up a large batch of epoxy, scuff things up and spray the epoxy over everything or do I need to strip off my temporary rattle can primer down completely before I epoxy spray? Thanks for your help and opinions.
There are some good spray bomb primers out there. One paint shop up here carries SEM primers in a rattle can. They also carry some of the u-pol rattle can stuff. It's pricy but is nice for the kind of things you are doing.
Epoxy should only be used over completley cleaned metals. For all the little areas you are talking about that are just wire wheeled zero rust or por15 are the way to go
If I remember right, I only worked one panel at a time, getting it in epoxy primer, filler if necessary, then higher build primer so I had to mix in small batches as I went. The reason for this is that there was a time limit on top coating the old PPG DP-40 epoxy primer; it didn't take top coating very well after a certain amount of time after curing. I don't know if that's still a factor these days or not. Devon
1) DaWildcat, your car is beautiful, nice work. 2) I think I will be making a stop by ye olde paint shop on my way home from work. I think they are a ppg distributer and i will talk to them about specifics. 3) epoxy can be sprayed over filler and other paint I thought, it just needs the high build over that within a time frame. Well, one other question to ask the folks at industrial finishes. Thanks for the directions guys. Jon
Thanks for the compliment! Yes, epoxy can be sprayed over the stuff mentioned, but I don't see much benefit at that point compared to using other less expensive primers. The epoxy primer really shines when used as the very first foundation for filler and other topcoats coming later, that's its primary purpose. Devon
