waving away rust with a magic wand

Rust treatment is one of the things you just have to get right when you're restoring a vintage car....and in my last post I described how my use of POR-15 was ultimately a disappointing experience. Fortunately that isn't the end of the story. In fact, in terms of treating rust that I just couldn't get rid of any other way, I've had a lot more success with Zero Rust. In fact, the main reason for using POR-15 in the first place was that I wanted a shinny black finish on the relevant parts. However, the future for Zero Rust, and all the other so-called rust treatments, is starting to look somewhat...err...corroded...thanks to the emergence of a new power.

My own definition of what makes a good idea has always been something that I really wish I thought of myself - and by good idea I'm not talking about something pretty cool, I'm referring to those life changing ideas that just don't come around every week. Or even every month. And, since I have a background in organometallic chemistry, I could well have thought of this one: take rusty piece of metal....put into bucket containing magic rust removal solution...wait...remove de-rusted metal...rinse and repeat. The reality though, is that the first I heard of this idea was when I read Thinking Outside the Rusty Box on the Boss Blog (as I call it). In fact, in order to get the best from the remainder of this post - or indeed to understand it at all - it is imperative that you read the above article and the even more important follow up Thinking Outside the Rusty Box part two before reading any further.

So....to summarize...the magic solution I used is really called Esprit Performance Rust Remover. It came from Rust Depot in NY and this particular brand includes a mixed in cleaning agent )more on that later). I ordered up a gallon of the concentrate, which came to about 80 dollars with shipping etc. While I was waiting for delivery I searched out the rustiest, most corroded parts I could find - the brackets from behind the front market lights were ideal. To be truthful I would have thrown these brackets in the trash if I could have found reproductions in any of the Mustang parts catalogs.

perfect candidates to test my magic solution

One evening after work I mixed some of the concentrate with six equivalents of hot water, tossed in the rusty brackets and left them to soak. The next evening I checked in, and I have to say I was surprised at how great the results were:

Not perfect, but WOW !!

Inside wasn't quite as good, but it was a heck of a lot better

OK, so the results were not perfect after 24 hours, but I was still absolutely AMAZED. It's one thing reading about this on a blog, however reliable you believe it to be, and another seeing it yourself in your own garage. So next step...upscale. I'm fortunate that I didn't need to apply the magic solution to the body shell, so it was onward with the small parts. 

The only limits are the size of the box

Here's a selection of "before" pictures:

After 3-4 days soaking in the solution, every spec of rust was gone. Here's the "afters":

I mentioned above that the Esprit product contains a cleaning agent. This really helped with parts like the door latches which had a kind of aged hue (in addition to the obvious rust), but came out sparkling after 3-4 days soaking...although you'll have to take my word for it because I don't have an after photo!

POR15 - the truth

There is still a lot of block sanding and bodywork to do on the car before it is ready for paint....and the hood, deck lid and fenders haven't even been started yet....but lately I have been ignoring these issues entirely and enjoying this view of my car again:

What I have been doing is working on restoring some more of the smaller parts that I will (one day) use to rebuild the car. I started by examining some of the parts I restored about a year ago. I used POR-15 to paint the rear axle housing and some of the brake parts, and I also used it on a few other items....like the door hinge mounting plates, and the brackets that go behind the rear valance. Inspection of these items showed evidence of bubbling at the paint surface, although it wasn't all that bad....

But when I checked out the leaf spring locator plates, it was worse: actual rust inside the bolt hole!

On the rear bumper internal brackets there was a huge bubble in the paint and an area where it had peeled off

When I skimmed over the surface with the wire wheel, I found the underlying metal thick with rust - it certainly wasn't like this when I painted over it!  

So what's all this then? Well, I was sceptical about POR-15 even when I originally used it on the rear end, because I've heard so many people, both personal friends and on the net, saying that it peels right back off. However, the manufacturers general response to this seems to be that it only peels off if you get water into the product....or in other words, if it peels off, you mixed it wrong. OK, so I have a past life as an organometallic* chemist (can I admit that here?), so I understand exactly what it means to exclude air (and thereby water vapor) at the parts-per-billion level....and I'm confident I did more than enough when I used the POR-15. And it still peeled off. And not just on one part, but on most of the stuff I painted. So I rest my case as this: "POR-15 is rubbish. It's worse than useless in fact."  I'm not claiming I'm the first person to say this (lol, probably not in the first 100,000!) but I'm adding my voice :)

(*Next time out I'll be reporting my own experiences on the chelation approach to rust removal so watch this space)

into the black

I was really happy with how the trunk came out, and I still had the garage covered in plastic, so next up was the engine bay. This area was painted with epoxy a little while back. I started the latest bit of masking by carefully covering up the read paint in the trunk area, and then I peeled back the covering at the front of the car.

I was careful also to cover up the floor where I previously painted clear coat.

I read a really useful article in Mustang Magazine about types of paint to use on the engine bay, and I settled on Dupli-color DE1635 Engine Enamel which is freely available at Kragen. Provided you mix (shake) the cans properly, this paint goes on great and is very affordable. I started on the outside, although I think it would have been easier the other way round, and all subsequent coats of paint were applied to the inside of the engine bay first.

All told I need about 3-4 coats to be happy with the coverage over the epoxy primer. However, a certain amount of sanding drips and sags in the paint followed by re-applying was needed before I was happy with entire area. Also, applying paint from a rattle can underneath the engine bay was a little bit challenging.

Took a bit more paint than I initially imagined...

So, time to unmask the body shell then? Well not quite actually. While I still had the most of the body masked off I took the opportunity to spray some rubberized coating into the rear wheel wells.

I also handed out the same treatment to those areas behind the fenders where road damage usually has the highest impact.

Here's how the body shell came out after I removed the masking and cleaned up the garage.

polishing up my column

The story of this project so far has been one of chunks. Obviously the first was stripping the car down to its shell, cleaning and storing parts as I went along. The next chunk was scrapping all the accumulated crud off of the underside and then painting it with epoxy primer. The main reason for doing this bit upfront was the amount of mess it created - I had also heard from tons of folks that this is easily the worst bit of the restoration, and I liked the idea that afterwards it would be downhill.

I then moved on to the inside of the trunk, which was very similar except that I was leaning forward rather than lying on my back; I finished painting primer inside the trunk back in November. After that I refurbed an eight inch rear axle, and fitted a new suspension which is one inch lower than stock. The next chunk was a major one: the passenger compartment and doors, which has taken several months from the beginning, when I took out the seat platforms and lowered them.

What next? Well it should really be the engine compartment, the fenders, the firewall and the portion of the underside at the front of the transmission tunnel - when this lot is ground down and painted with epoxy I'll really be getting somewhere. The thing is though, that the next portion of this work will have to take place in a new garage - I am moving house soon - so for now I need to get the steering column back in the car and put back whatever else makes sense so that I can move the car with the least amount of fuss.

I could have just bolted the column back in - I've done it before after all - but I really wanted to refurbish the column this time, so that's the route I took. I started with the clutch pedal support - this is basically a metal structure that supports not just the clutch and brake pedals, but the steering column too. Apart from being covered in rust, one of the clutch pedal bearings is missing - it had actually worn into an oval shape over the years and dropped out back when I removed the pedals. You can get repair kits that fix this issue, but I decided to take the opportunity to upgrade to a roller bearing supported clutch instead - hopefully one day I will be able to write in this blog about how much better it is!

I started off by chopping out the remaining original bearing with a cut off wheel, and then I gave the support housing a good going over with Metal Ready.

After rinsing with water and drying with compressed air and a heat gun, the housing was ready for two coats of POR15. (The second coat must be applied within 3-5 hours after the first coat to achieve best results).

I used the Scott Drake roller bearing kit from NPD which supplies everything you need including replacement plastic bushings - it's a good idea to buy an extra pair of bushings for the brake pedal at the same time.

Installation was very easy once I filed the excess POR15 out of the openings in the support housing. I also installed a new rubber bumper for the clutch pedal.

On to the steering column. Outwardly my collapsible column is in reasonably good condition with just a little bit of surface rust at the lower end and some scratches in the painted finish.

The real rust was hiding inside the column:

I did my best to remove loose rust from inside the tube by sliding a wire brush up and down - I tied pieces of cord to each end of the brush to make this easier. I also ground the lower end of the column down to the metal with a wire wheel on the drill.

Next I taped up all the openings in the sleeve, and let go with a rattle can of Zero Rust.

I was actually rather surprised how well this worked out - I got very good coverage on the inside of the column with the aerosol:

I did the same with the inner sleeve.

After the Zero Rust was dry I sprayed the inner sleeve with a two light coats of Eastwood's chrome paint - I thought this would be a good time to experiment with this paint as the inner sleeve will never be seen; I'm also planning to use the chrome paint on the taillight buckets. The paint was actually really thick and it was very easy to get too much on the sleeve - I had to sand off a ton of excess after the first attempt and then redo it. I think this paint actually does look really good - it's not going to fool anyone into thinking something is real chrome, but it has a very similar look; it just needs to be applied with the can at least 14 inches from whatever is being painted. The outer sleeve got two coats of dark red interior lacquer, NPD part# AP-5792R. At first this paint looks like cherry red, but after drying it is a very close match to the other interior parts I took off the car...it just looks more sparkly and new. Yay!

The other steering column and interior parts that will also be this color were sanded with 220 and then 400 grit paper to give a good base for the top coat - I didn't use any primer on these items.

After sanding I wiped down with acetone and applied several light coats of paint with the rattle can.

The choice between Zero Rust and POR15 is a matter of much debate. My own view is that POR15 is much more trouble to apply, and does have a tendency to peel off, but can also look good on certain parts, like the rear axle housing. I also like to use it for some hidden parts that should be black, and on heavily rusted metal. In any other situation though, I'm a Zero Rust guy. The steering shaft fell into the former category, although I only painted the lower portion.

The column-to-firewall brackets and the door hinge retaining plates were very rusty, so they got a good going over with the wire wheel before the POR15 went on. I also did the supporting brackets for the rear valance at the same time.

Hardware for the steering column, valance brackets and door hinges was cleaned up with (variously) Eastwood rust remover, Marine Clean and Eastwood pre-painting prep, and zinc plated using the kit I bought from Eastwood. I don't think the quality of the plating is really good enough for hardware that will be on display - for example under the hood - but it is adequate for these items. It's likely that media blasting the bolts before the plating would lead to a better result, but as I don't have access to a blasting cabinet at the moment, testing that theory is going to have to wait.

I also cleaned up the plastic parts which clip inside the outer and inner sleeves - these parts are not reproduced as far as I know, so I was fortunate that they were in good condition after I removed the grease and grime.