Customs Sealing a rusting body seam (59 Chevy wagon)

I've got this here rusty seam that's progressively getting worse. What is my best option for a)stopping the rust and b)sealing it without repaint?

 

Park the car inside.

 

Take a small artist's brush and 'paint" some OSPHO on the rust so it seeps down inside the seam.
If you can remove the interior panel also spray the underside with OSPHO. OSPHO neutralizes rust.
You will have to repaint the rusted area. Can you carefully pick out the old sealer and reseal it. Sadly, that's a rust area that only gets worse, but you can slow it down.

 

Find an old lamp on the beach, rub it, ask the genie that comes out to repair it! That is about the only way to fix that without getting in there and fixing it.

 

Fix the rust. Seal it. Don't paint it.

 

I wont be repainting, not now. I'll try the OSPHO to neutralize. I was thinking a very tastefully done, small run of white exterior caulk to seal it. That work?

 

If you get the rust and old sealer out of it first, and use auto body seam sealer, and then paint the affected area, it might work. Otherwise, it will just get stained from the rust, probably trap more moisture, and cause more problems later on.

 

How about some pictures of the wagon please...... Thanks!

 

Maybe POR-15 or rustoleum pin striping?

 

here ya go

 

nice long roof, cool pipes! You'd only have to repaint the top. That's no so bad.

 

Nice Wagon!! Dig the old caulk out sand the rust, treat it with something to kill the rust, hit it with epoxy primer, caulk it with seam sealer, and repaint the white. Then it's done right and will not come back to haunt you.

 

Very nice wagon! It deserves to be treated right.

The seam sealer has failed.
The failed seam sealer needs removed, the rust treated (ospho) and then primed
resealed with automotive seam sealer and then painted.
That's about 8 hrs work total over about 4 days for dry and cure times for anyone familiar with the process.

Bathroom or house caulk will make the problem worse and 10 much more expensive to repair later. If you want to buy yourself time, you can put a nice coat and bead of Vaseline on it and reapply as needed to seal it

 

If your not going to do the job right don't do it at all. Definitely don't use bathroom caulking.

 

if you want to try a "better than leaving it" type of way to slow it down do this: take some 2" masking tape and run it on the edge of the seam. just about where it rolls over and then cover that piece of tape with a good duct tape. the masking tape will prevent the duck tape from pulling off the paint. then take a s****er and scratch out the rust and dried sealer that is in the seam. then take a piece of 80 grit paper and fold it so it the edge can be run up and down the seam. blow it out with air. if it looks like shiny metal and the edge of the paint looks fairly straight flow in some rust treatment primer using an artist brush. seam seal if you want. when that dries remove the tape. now run tape just wider than the primer line on both sides of the seam, a 1/16" is more than enough. flow in some gloss white paint with an artists brush. remove tape before it dries. this will slow the rust down. by keeping the repair small and close where the panel rolls over AND the fact it is white doing it like that will be hard to notice "at first glance" by most people. bright sun, nobody will notice.

 

What he said but use POR 15 instead of "rust treatment primer".

 

Beautiful wagon!!!!!

 

Better get at it. I spent the afternoon cutting rust out of my current project. It will only get worse.

 

Rust never sleeps. Stop it before you have holes.

 

Use a hyperdurmic needle to push in ospho , epoxy primer , or por15 .the needle will get it in deeper than a brush or spray .
Good luck .

 

If the OSPHO works, maybe you could make a "dam" outta tape and let it soak in overnight.

 

ok thanks y'all

 

Any caustic rust treatment and you run the risk of entrapment and it could rust worse from the inside.

 

Any half way measure is going to be a gamble. An anti-rust treatment that you attempt to work into the seam has to penetrate top to bottom, the full height, width, length of the seam. If you miss a single inch of out of sight area, it will keep rusting out of sight for a while, but eventually in plain sight with more cancer than before. You may have developed a little flex and movement in the seam which can cause early failure of surface repairs. You may be able to remove and/or treat the rust from the backside with out pulling the quarter panels, but from the outside, not so much.