The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Pitted Rust

I did a search online for this and I know what I am currently doing, but I wanted to get some opinions. My truck has a lot of deep rust pits. I have been successful in grinding a lot og the one in the back off, but around the doors I am not so lucky they metal is heavily pitted. even after grinding it is not spectacular but it is better. what options do I have, I already need every patch panel made for this truck so I am not really looking to get major into it, but make it not and issue in the years to come.

Thoughts?

[img]http://hotrodders.com/gallery/uploads/28451/100_1660small.JPG[/img]

i had a lot of rust pits on the hood of my '73. something had been stored on top of it for several years before i got it and even in dry az there was some pretty bad surface rust that i couldn't completely get rid of.

for a 'thrifty' fix i wire wheeled, then sanded, then treated with phosphoric(?) acid. i then applied primer with a short nap roller to fill in the pits . then wet sanded smooth, primed again with normal spray gun and painted.

i think it turned out darn good.

Light sand blasting works good.
See if you can find a shop suited to blast body panels (without warpage).
That way you know its gone for sure.

Good Luck.

They have that new metal spray fix now. Anybody seen that. It's like welding up holes, but just spraying hot metal...not sure how good it would work, but interesting.

Just for temp rust stop, blasting is best in my opinion...considering cost of dipping etc. Just put more than plain ol' primer on it when done. Primer is just a big, sandable sponge allowing water to meet up with metal again. Epoxy primer should do the trick, or spray it with something temporary.

Sand blasting is not really an option because of the money and the time I have right now. I will probably do the wire wheel option and hope for the best.

Get as much of the rust off as you can, then use PICKLEX. Available from Autobodystore.com.

Cheers,
mark.
51 KY 3100

Once you get the rust off you have to fill the pits somehow or you loose too much metal. Spray metal welding is nice but spendy. Most people grind off the rust, do a phosphoric acid treat, then use light body filler to level out the pits.

Well here is a trick a old fella helped my brother with on a 47 International Pickup , he re-did ,
They took Spot Putty in a tube an reduced it with Laquer Thinner an sprayed it on , it had the same pits .
Will take several coats but sprayin the filler gets rid of the air gaps that will let the pits rust again ...this held up for yrs afterwards , and she still looked good last time i saw her before he sold her off .
Just a thought ?

from what is in the picture you should get the cab blasted and find a shop that does spray welding...doc

Now here is a thought I had last night about this, I have used POR-15 on frames and painted over them since the UV causes the POR to dull and it has worked well. I was thinking of spraying POR-15 on the truck then doing the body work. From what I have read POR allows you to work over it and does not have a problem with fillers. Has anyone done this before?
Thanks

Spot putty will shrink back real bad, so you probably shouldnt use it to fill in pits. I'm going to try one of the "rust destroyer" products and see if it works... I cant hurt my rust bucket any more than it already is.

Don't spray POR unless you have a positive pressure respirator, you will have nerve damage afterward.

You can topcoat POR but you have to use their special tie coat primer. I think you are better off stripping the rust off and using a skim coat of regular body filler. Don't use spot putty unless its of the type that needs a hardener.

Cheap sandblaster...(Harbor Freight). Two part epoxy primer. Body filler followed by an 80 grit DA. Auto primer/sealer (beige to tan in color) Follow with thinned spot primer sprayed on...then sand, prime and paint. The epoxy primer is hard like a rock and has very good adhesion properties. Body filler will fill the major pitting and if you want to take it a step further, use the green filler that's much harder than the typical pink filler...more fiberglass. This way there's not as much spot putty needed. The sealer will give you a good idea of how your paint is going to appear and will show areas that need more spot putty sprayed on. Finally, the primer will seal over everything else and give you a good base for your paint. This is how we did it 20 years ago and it hold up very good. There may be more innovative products on the market now but if they're cost prohibitive or dangerous to use you can go this route. Your key is getting all or most of the rust out, neutralizing what you can't get out and putting a hard continuous coating over it to prevent it from coming back through or being exposed to oxygen. Or you could move somewhere that rust is close to non-existant.

5wests has the right idea.I would sand blast, any really badly pitted spots can be brazed up or filled with lead. This is the way body work was once done. you could also use MAR-Glass ( has other names it's a reinforced type of filler, thats the filler 5wests is talking about) is good over pitted areas. It's better to use something that will give it a little rigidity hevily pitted areas are probably thin straight filler will blow out over time