Hey all, I'm looking for options on paint and rust removal. I have a 30 roadster body that lived its last 80 years in a farm barn that fell in on itself. So while there was some protection, the dirt floor and Midwest humidity took it's toll. Being the body was off the frame and half on/half off of a skid the body along the lower passenger side will be replaced and subframe is MIA. As bad as it sounds it's not terrible. Rear deck lid took a hit and the above deck lid too, but looks savable. The entire car has a orange peel texture from the surface rust. If I buff or sand this all to flat will I be thinning out the metal, distorting it? Same by sandblasting. warpage? My thoughts were to buff it with a coarse pad or roller sander drum, then to spray it with etching primer or por and then building up primer to sand out flat. POR is expensive, does anyone have experience with the rust oleum self etching primer. This car won't be covered in candy paint with Supremes' or anything (although that would be nice) This car will be more of an ode to the period race car. kinda'..depends on how hard you stare at it I guess. Parts pile includes the following (for your stoke factor): 30 roadster body (doors still welded shut from racing) chopped windshield new sub frame, and floor, still need front extensions 32' frame rails dropped front axle/spring/32 cross memeber/A rear Xmember/round back spindles juice brakes wide fives wheels and hubs flathead v8 3/4 cam 2x2 D and S or 2x3 Offy intake pile of holleys and stroms Edelbrock heads T5 T5 adaptor clutch kit 35-36 rear end and wish bone Halibrand 201 most of it's here and I'm building this chassis this winter. working on replacing steel and building the sub frame now.
Hard to provide help with no pictures but I wouldn't put POR15 on a car body. Ick. If there isn't enough metal left to blast or sand, find a better one. I'd take the body down to my guy, "Mr Sandman" on my phone, have him clean it up (he has done a number of cars for me without warpage), epoxy primer whatever is left before it flash rusts again, bang out the dents and do a prelim body job, shoot the entire car in a few coats of polyester primer to build it back up, block sand and spray something over the top to protect it (not primer). POR15? Might as well have it rhinolined.
If you care about the paint in even the slightest, remove all rust. It will need sandblasting or acid dipping to get it out of the pits. If any is left in the pits it will come back. If you don’t care about the paint, try the method you suggested.
It really needs to be blasted by the looks of it. Be very careful sandblasting if you are doing it yourself. You can warp flat panels like doors/quarters very easily. If you are outsourcing make sure it's someone familiar with blasting car bodies not just some random blaster.
I saw a T roadster body once that had apparently been in similar but worse condition. What I saw was a fiberglass (inside) |metal |fiberglass & bondo (outside) "composite" body. It was strong and wasn't going to rust anymore...
I haven't used POR15, I was looking up self etching primer and it came up along with the usual suspects. I thought it was more of a thick chassis paint. I hadn't heard it used on a body so that's why I asked. Has anyone purchased blasting equipment and media to do it themselves? I have a big old pot and a smaller hand held. But I would have to get a bigger compressor and find a good media. It's been since glass bead and sand options since I've blasted anything.
I have brushed POR-15, rolled and sprayed it (nasty stuff to breathe, kills fast). It is good for under side of the car and the frame of a driver. Not the prettiest finish, I have top coated it many times with chassis black to make the finish uniform. I bought a dual drum blaster from Eastwood years ago to clean subframes for the F body cars I was restoring. One side was for baking soda and the other sand. I used crushed garnet. You need a big compressor, I used a 5HP, 80 gallon unit that kept up. It needs a drier as condensation will wet the sand and clog the nozzle pretty fast. I erected a cheap pop up tent and added a tarp around the sides and one on the floor to catch the sand and debris. I filtered the sand through a window screen and reused it a few times. I sold it a few years back to a buddy, it still works fine. Eastwood sells good quality stuff and the price wasn't bad. I figured it paid for itself a couple time over and when I sold it I still recovered some of the purchase price. The only caveat I will offer is blasting a frame is easy, can't really mess that one up. Blasting sheet metal can turn a car into nothing but yard art in a hurry. I prefer dipping the bodies over blasting but it sounds like there may be nothing left on the hook when they pull your body out.
I like the last pic…continue that finish (whatever you did). Build the Hot Rod…get it running. Can always redo body finish later on. Just don’t store it outdoors. With some luck, you might find a better body, along the way.
This body cost me all of a couple hundred bucks. I'm going to give this a shot. Not looking for a show car, just something fun to work on and cruise in. I do know the last I checked Brookville has a roadster body for $8500. eek! The way I'm building this chassis. I will be able to replace the body down the line if needed. I have the tools and the shop. I've done a lot of fab, some paint, etc. But not much full blown body work. That last pic is me buffing the crap out of the steel with a brown scotch brite pad, hitting it with self etching primer buffing and black rust oleum lightly sanded with 220. I wanted to see if it would fill in. and it did in spots. If I could get away with that, it would work with a higher building primer. But I don't want the metal to rust from the inside out. Maybe a vinegar or some sort of spray would work. with some elbow grease.
I’d love to find a body like that at that price. crap I’d cruise it just like that. but someone that knows how to blast can help that a lot. Someone that doesn’t will kill it. If mine and it had bad sub rails, I’d be tempted to soak the pieces in molasses. Drill out some welds and seperate the major panels and soak em.
Too bad you started on removing the rust...now you have to do more.... I would completely ignore trying to get the body to look good, until the car is complete and driving and you've worked out all the mechanical bugs. Maybe I've just wasted too much of my life doing that stuff, and now I just do what's important?
My bro and I have dipped very crusty parts in molasses and citric acid baths and the stuff comes out great. Just takes time, a big tank, and about $300. We switched the parts out every two or three weeks and had dozens of things done by the end of the summer.
Ha! This is where we differ, working out mechanical bugs sounds easier than trying to make it look good to me. I’m sure all of it will be fine. Stay optimistic!
Now that you have the body out of its prior resting place, it won't get any worse. Start on the whole project, and as mentioned above dip strip it at home-molasses, citric acid, some form of that. Eats the rust on both sides, at the same time. If I found that, I'd be working with it.
Most of those smaller pieces will fit in a sand blast cabinet and you won't screw the metal up with the nozzle used in those. Those big commercial blast guns in the wrong hands is what screws up sheet metal. Or by electrolis using a old analog battery charger and Borax washing powder following directions found on the net. The thing there is finding a plastic container big enough and affordable enough to handle the parts. You don't have the smell like using Molassas does or a big issue getting rid of the liquid.
I disassembled a 29 A coupe body that was rusted bad. Got it into the smallest possible pieces and made a wood frame from 2x3's, used pond liner in it and got a 5 gallon bucket of the rust remover that you add to water. I also ended up using a small pond pump to keep the solution moving. It worked great. On the parts that were bigger and stuck out I used a sprinkler on top of them to keep them soaking. It was clean and free of rust even in spots you couldn't blast.
The molasses was not as stinky as we were expecting. And you can just let the stuff out on the ground. It might be gooey and stain though. Ours ran into a corn field right next door. Supposedly it’s good for plants. Citric acid powder is not harmful either, except for the stain. The powder we started with is actually an ingredient in foods. Safe to eat, and not dirty til it’s full of old rust.
My '39 body was sitting on the ground with no frame for who knows how long, but long enough to rot away the lower 4"-5" of the whole body. It had old primer on it, but it was so old it had turned from black to medium gray. After replacing all the metal in the lower 5" of the body I then began stripping the whole body to bare metal so I could shoot epoxy sealer before doing the final bodywork. I used paint stripper pads on my 4.5" angle grinder and it doesn't remove much if any metal. It did leave the metal scuffed just enough to get a good grip on the epoxy sealer, and it only took maybe 4 hrs. to strip the whole car. That's the method I'd use to clean a car that had rust all over. Sandblasting can be tough on metal, and dipping is very expensive.
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