Heavy surface rust treatment
 

I'm getting close to painting the body on my frame off resto and I'm paranoid about shooting paint only to have a rust bubble pop through a year down the road.

I had to put a couple patches in the quarters and in the inner bed side. As pretty much always the case these areas rusted from the inside out. Since there is no good way to get between the quarter and inner bedside i decided to remove the inner bedside so I could treat the back side of each.

Obviously these surfaces we're never painted from the factory except for the thin edp coating or whatever it was back then which would have been gone after a year or so. So naturally there is some heavy surface rust over the whole area. By heavy I mean some pitting but mostly just an even layer. The kind of stuff that you hit with a wire brush on a grinder and it knocks the loose dusty stuff off and leaves a glossy tightly adhered layer of rust behind.

The undercarriage and frame were blasted to bare metal but I don't really want to blast these parts so I tried the prep n etch rust remover (phosphoric acid). For the really light areas it dissolves the rust down to clean metal but for the other 95% it just turned the rust black. If you sand the black areas you eventually get back down to more rust so it doesn't seem to penetrate that far. From my experience this is pretty much the case for any of the rust "converters".

Anyone have any long-term experience with painting over these converted areas? Does the thin converted top layer effectively retard the rust underneath? I plan to epoxy prime and raptor line these pieces but not sure about the "converted" coating as I normally take it down to clean metal.

Re: Heavy surface rust treatment
 

knock off the heavy flaking stuff with scraper then Muriatic acid (pool cleaner) will take it down to bare metal. Rinse thoroughly afterward.

Re: Heavy surface rust treatment
 

I like OSPHO, I think it is phosphoric acid. I'm pretty sure the Metal prep that you put on before POR-15 is phosphoric acid, but I may be wrong.

Good luck, Rg

Re: Heavy surface rust treatment
 

Just be careful. I work with muriatic acid quite a bit, and it's pretty nasty stuff. Good ventilation, a splash shield, and chemical gloves at a minimum.

Re: Heavy surface rust treatment
 

the PO of my 72 showed me places where the acid he used on mine ate his concrete floor. would that have been muriatic or phosphoric?

it surprises me to see the sandblasting done on resto's on the tv shows--seems like a high end body would be vatted instead

Re: Heavy surface rust treatment
 

Walter, either one will, muriatic is much stronger. It doesn't take much to stop the phosphoric, I usually lay scrap cardboard down where I think it might drop.

Rg

Re: Heavy surface rust treatment
 

Thanks Jim

Re: Heavy surface rust treatment
 

I stuck with the prep n etch. Sanded it down as best I could then went over it multiple times with the prep n etch and scrubbed it with a wire bush. Got it as clean as what i thought was practical then hit it with epoxy primer and raptor liner. Still need to weld a new lip back across the bed rail. The lower edge was rusted and jagged so I just cut it off when I removed the inner bedside rather than try to save it.