Fixing a bit of rust

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cpapeter

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Day 1. Here's where things started.

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And here's where the day ended.
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That's a bunch of sanding to remove the rust and get down to bare metal, then a couple coats of self-etching primer followed by 3 coats of a filler primer.

I'm actually surprised at how well this came out - at least to start. In that last photo, you'll notice that yes, the masking tape pulled off a bunch of the original color coat. That is a problem in the general area, which I'll address in the next installment. And I plan to at least attempt to correct some of the failed clear coat that you can see. It's failing across the entire roof, but I'm only going to attack a limited area at first.

This is my first attempt at some semi-serious body work. I'm not looking for show quality here. Mainly I just want to protect the steel and hopefully not look too horrible in the process. So be gentle with your comments and corrections.
 

Hipster

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A few things that jumped out at me. Firstly you hardlined your tape edge with prime when you primed. These hardlines don't always sand out. Secondly, where you pulled the taped it looks like it pulled chunks of paint off down to E-coat. That's your sign you just can't put more materials on top of what's there and that the roof needs to be stripped to metal. Thirdly with the exception of Epoxy primer, primers are porous and don't stop the underlying metal from rusting.

I would strip the roof in it's entirety, treat the rusty area's with Ospho or Rust-Mort, do a little body work. and epoxy prime the entire roof in one shot.
 
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Supercharged111

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A few things that jumped out at me. Firstly you hardlined your tape edge with prime when you primed. These hardlines don't always sand out. Secondly, where you pulled the taped it looks like it pulled chunks of paint off down to E-coat. That's your sign you just can't put more materials on top of what's there and that the roof needs to be stripped to metal. Thirdly with the exception of Epoxy primer, primers are porous and don't stop the underlying metal from rusting.

I would strip the roof in it's entirety, treat the rusty area's with Ospho or Rust-Mort, do a little body work. and expoxy prime the entire roof in one shot.

Yeah! Get him!

Hipster knows his **** so if you remotely have the capability to heed his advice, I would do so. Scope creep blows, but it's a fact of life.
 

Hipster

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Yeah! Get him!

Hipster knows his **** so if you remotely have the capability to heed his advice, I would do so. Scope creep blows, but it's a fact of life.
What I really thought was, a 6 inch strip at a time this is going to take him forever. lol To put in perspective, Not many are using chemical stripper these days, nor do I. I could walk in 8 am break my various sanders out. Hit it with 40 grit until I'm down to e-coat, then 80g, treat it, go to lunch. come back, do a couple skim coats on the rust areas, buzz it 180 and be priming by 3 o'clock lol
 
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cpapeter

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A few things that jumped out at me. Firstly you hardlined your tape edge with prime when you primed. These hardlines don't always sand out.

Yep. I'll avoid that in the future. And everything sands out with sufficient effort. Even if that means taking off all of the primer. ;) I'll do my best to minimize that line as I proceed.

Secondly, where you pulled the taped it looks like it pulled chunks of paint off down to E-coat. That's your sign you just can't put more materials on top of what's there and that the roof needs to be stripped to metal.

I am fighting scope creep tooth and nail. Again, my goal isn't to create a really nice paint job. It's to protect the metal. And to learn to do a bit of body work myself. At some point yes, the whole body will get stripped and repainted. But that's not this job today. If - no, when - the paint continues to fall off, I'll keep patching with my new skills until I get tired of that or it's time to paint the whole truck.

Having said that, I do see the wisdom of your advice. If I were going to perform a full restoration, I'd definitely be taking the whole body down to bare metal. That's the only way to do it right.

Thirdly with the exception of Epoxy primer, primers are porous and don't stop the underlying metal from rusting.

Yes, I'm aware of that. I've seen plenty of vehicles with rusty primer. I'm fortunate that I live in a desert with very dry air. I plan to get the color coat and clear coat on it next weekend, and am crossing my fingers that the primer will be sufficient until then.
 

cpapeter

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What I really thought was, a 6 inch strip at a time this is going to take him forever. lol

I'm not going to paint the whole roof. I'm fixing the rust and covering up the chipping paint. Nothing more. Yes, this is a complete bodge job. But it's better than watching the whole truck rust away. My goal is to preserve the truck so that some future owner has a good starting point for a proper restoration.
 

Hipster

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I'm not going to paint the whole roof. I'm fixing the rust and covering up the chipping paint. Nothing more. Yes, this is a complete bodge job. But it's better than watching the whole truck rust away. My goal is to preserve the truck so that some future owner has a good starting point for a proper restoration.
I get what you're trying to accomplish, but in my eyes putting more materials on top of delaminating paint ultimately just makes a bigger mess of it. You'll see once you get further into it, delaminating paint doesn't like to feather out and when you try and paint over it it can ring out.
 

cpapeter

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I get what you're trying to accomplish, but in my eyes putting more materials on top of delaminating paint ultimately just makes a bigger mess of it. You'll see once you get further into it, delaminating paint doesn't like to feather out and when you try and paint over it it can ring out.

Thanks for the heads up. I suspected I might have a problem with the failing paint. Perhaps I'll just live with it's edge and try to hold it down with the top coat. It's good to go into your bodge jobs prepared for what might go wrong. Heck, the hard edge on the primer might just blend in with the other hard edges I might have to leave. :)
 
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