I did something pretty stupid and forgot to put the battery hold down on my car before driving it. Needless to say the battery got into the alternator and it poked a hole in the side of the battery. Acid all over the front side of the new installed, freshly painted engine and freshly painted frame. As you can imagine there is now no paint where the acid got on it. Washed it real good at the car wash and then repainted the best I could with the front sheet metal on the car. Paint has once again come off of the area and it now a rust color. Question is how do I neutralize the acid so that I can get the paint to stick. If I need to I will remove the front sheet metal again to get better access, just need to know what to use to clean up this mess.
Maybe hit it with some phosphoric acid. Should leave a nice phosphate surface for paint to stick to. I know you don't want to, but you really do need to take off the sheetmetal and clean everything properly. Or it'll really **** a few years from now when it gets to you and you decide you should have done it right.
Agreed. Get a bunch of baking soda, mix it into a paste with water and paint the stuff all over the acid spill. If it foams up there's still acid there. Eye protection is a pretty good idea. If you want to save the battery, epoxy would probably patch it well enough, but maybe not to put back in the nice car.
lots of baking soda mix it in a spray bottle and keep spraying it till no more foaming up then wire brush it
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