Dealing with rust

WilliamA

I've had the paint and hardware sitting on the bench for a month now but at last the good weather is preventing me from coming up with more excuses to not attack my rusty, gacked up trailer frame and hitch. I will be posting a process thread of what I humbly consider to be the best way to treat rust and corrosion using POR-15. It's a 3 step (not counting prep work) rust inhibitor that I've used before to good effect. It's a bit time consuming to do properly so I'll spread this out over a few days.

More to come...

WilliamA

Michigan_Mike

Looking forward to your work here William and if you get bored you can certainly stop over to Michigan and inspect the undercarriage of the 400 if you have any free time. But your point is well made as it’s important to keep an eye on things and address rust and corrosion.

Anyway good stuff and appreciate you taking the time and effort of documenting your projects as this helps others out.

LuckyJ

I second the use of POR15, and will be using it soon, so I am also following this.

WilliamA

Well, my schedule of fishing and house maintenance has gotten in the way of my promised thread. I have more on my plate than I can possibly eat! lol

My plan for rust-proofing stems from the nasty condition of my T@G's undercarriage in the area of the axle mount, with a few other spots that need some preventative TLC. I also desperately needed to get at my steel Jeep fenders and mitigate a lot of damage and rust. To that end, and by way of fulfilling my contract to do this thread, I'll first post a procedure thread on how I'm doing my Jeep fenders. Since both problems are indentical in their solution steps and I've already done the rear fenders, I'll post that. I'll post more process photos of the trailer as I get to it:

Here are my poor Jeep fenders. Although these guys look like I pulled them out of an abandoned boneyard, they've only been in service on my Jeep since January of 2018. The problem with them (and me) is that they were powdercoated when I got them, but there was no primer or rust-preventative put on first. I'm a bit of a troll when it comes to powdercoat. I don't care much for it as it has exactly the problem you see here. Powdercoat is NOT a sealer against rust and water. It needs to be aggressively sealed underneath. Lots of parts come with only one coat of powdercoat without any sealer on the bare metal first. That's fine for aluminum or other non-ferrous metals, but steel is always looking for a place to rust and powdercoat offers that opportunity in spades. If you look closely at the photos, you can see that the powdercoat has been "pushed" off the bare metal by rust. Corrosion has gotten under the powdercoat, traveled along the metal and caused de-bonding of the coating. Lots of places on the fenders looked okay, but were actually in this condition. I started scraping off the fenders and the powdercoat just peeled off in large sheets.

Here's my favorite tool for attacking heavy rust and corrosion. It's aggressive and dangerous so be warned and advised. This thing spins at 12,000 rpm's and occasionally spits off the tiny needles of wire at extremely high speed. It also "grabs" corners and is impossible to completely control. You need to be careful about which direction it's spinning before touching the metal as it will take off and go where it wants, not where you want. That being said, for my money it's the best cheapo tool for a thoroughly nasty job. I did my entire Jeep fender in about an hour with it, removing all of the powdercoat I could get to. Use eye protection, heavy gloves and heavy pants. I dug plenty of the tiny needles out of my clothes when I was finished.

Here's the Jeep fender post-cleanup. The metal wheel doesn't grind the metal, which is why I use it instead of a sanding or grinding disk. I'd have needed a whole box of sanding disks to remove the powdercoat as it melts when heated (as in, when you apply a sander to it) and just gums up everything. It's about as fun to remove as road tar. Although the fender still looks rusty, I've got the scale and loose stuff off and am ready to go on to step 2.

POR-15 comes as a 3 part process (not including the ugly preparation). The first step is clean the metal as much as possible, then spray this stuff (you're supposed to dilute it with water about 3-1 first) on liberally and let it sit for 30 minutes or so, keeping the surface wet to the touch. This is (I think anyway) a powerful detergent cleaner that gets any oil, remaining bits of debris and road chum off of the metal. Once it's worked, just rinse it off with a hose and let dry for a few minutes.
The 2nd step is to spray on their acid etching surface prep. It also comes in a spray bottle. Make sure to wear gloves and keep it off your clothes. I don't know what it is exactly, but it's some kind of mild acid that attacks and neutralizes the rust and bare metal, etching the metal in preparation for paint. Again, just spray it on (full-strength) let it sit, keep it wet for half an hour or so, then thoroughly rinse it off and let dry. While it looks in this photo like I've got a coat of paint on over the rust, it's actually the bare metal after 30 minutes with the cleaner on. The cleaner turns the metal dark, then the acid turns it white as it dries.

One of my favorite things about POR-15 is how easy it is to apply. Rather than spray it on, you brush it on the bare metal. I used a small, cheapo disposable paintbrush for this. It takes 2 coats, applying the 2nd after the first starts to tack up but before it completely dries. The POR-15 is self-leveling and leaves no brush marks. They say that and my experience is that it really is true. Just brush it on thoroughly, getting into cracks and crannies as well as you can, then let it dry and it magically self-levels to look quite smooth, even on vertical surfaces. Unlike paint, a little bit goes a long way. I bought a quart and did both of my Jeep fenders inside and out in 2 coats and still have more than 3/4 of a can left. It's expensive, but goes a long, long way. I'd make a guess that you can do an entire T@G frame with a quart. If you need more, it also comes in pints. I hung my fenders so I could do all sides with each coat, saving me the trouble of doing one side, let dry, then the other etc. I let them dry overnight.

By the next day, they were bone dry and ready to put back on. This is the finish without applying any clearcoat or topcoat. Keep in mind, POR-15 recommends some sort of overcoat as it's not UV resistant. I doubt it would be an issue for frame members and things that live in the dark, but I plan to spray a topcoat of bedliner on my fenders as soon as I can get the front ones finished. This stuff really does a good job of finding its way into cracks and crevices. As with any metal preparation, it's a good idea to get rid of any "knife-edge" metal.

More to come...

WilliamA

LuckyJ

Nicely done.

I have to say that I was surprised to see the rust on your fenders, since I was sure they were the plastic type.

As for powder coat, I feel the same way as you do about it. I see it as great stuff for inside furniture, but not that good for parts that see winter wheater, and I am not talking about Florida winter here. But I guess this is like other things, where quality is not equal to all process.

WilliamA

I got the lions' share of my frame done this morning and it's nice and dry. Not a bad job. Keep in mind that there's no supervisor watching to tell you that it all needs to be done at once. I have a few spots that need more attention and I'll get on to them in time. I'll do a better job of the axle support and hardware the next time I pull the wheels for brake adjustment etc. It's a process, not a product...

Here are the 3 POR-15 products all lined up. You can get this in a kit or individually. Just depends upon whether you source it online or at the store. I got this stuff at NAPA auto parts off the shelf.

As I said earlier, it's actually not easy to do a crappy job. This stuff goes on pretty well. I used the small, cheapo brush and a plastic cup, just dabbing it on and the spreading it out. As it dries, it self-levels pretty well without any babysitting.

All in all, I suppose I spent 3 hours or so on this much. An hour of swabbing and spraying, a bit of dry time and then some quality time sitting on my backside with brush in hand. It's very helpful to have a good, dry and hot day. That speeds it up. I've got one coat on here and I know I said this stuff takes 2. I had other responsibilities so I'll get to the 2nd coat soon. Also, I didn't remove the paint/powdercoat as it was in very good shape most places. I just scuffed up the gack and cleaned, then painted. Progress, not perfection. It's sealed and protected and I'm happy with that.

WilliamA

SueBHunny

Thanks for sharing. I really need to do this on my hitch on my car. I'm less terrified of it now.

Michigan_Mike

Nice work William! This is a continuous battle here in the Midwest and parts north that never ends. Road grit, rocks, sand and debris are like a sandblasting operation during road and off road travel. Then throw in moisture, humidity, temperature changes, ice, snow, etc. and you are on your way. I’ve done the grinding of rust on trailer frames and it is a big project to say the least. At the very least you can spray the lower frame area with Rustoleum spray paint and feel good that you are at least hindering or slowing the ability of rust to further deteriorate metal.

https://www.thoughtco.com/how-rust-works-608461

WilliamA

Moving through my ever-expanding list of stuff to do, I try and set aside an hour each morning (after coffee) to keep up with the details of my jobs. In keeping with that, I wanted to also treat my vehicle hitch to the same POR-15 treatment that I've done to the trailer side. I had previously taken my hitch off and did some cleanup on it, so this morning I slathered on a 1st coat of paint. Once that dries, I'll bolt the pieces back together and then put on another coat to get the bolts and fasteners as well as seal the pieces together with what I hope will be a bit of extra protection:

It's important to note here that while it's a good thing to protect metal parts, it can be disastrous to coat hitch parts with something that might degrade inside the receiver and cause them to become so tight that they can't be taken apart. I've spent time before trying to get the insert out of a receiver hitch after it rusted together and it's not a fun job, resulting in the use of a hydraulic press and torch. The other side of that coin is that it's possible to put a paint or other coating on the pieces that causes the same problem. I don't have any advice for coatings on slide-together hitch components other than I personally believe it's better to have something coating the sliding parts than to allow them to simply rust solid. Cautious folk might want to defer to the enamel spray-bomb primer/paint for the receiver inside and outside where they slide together. Those coatings are thin and even if they come off inside the receiver, "should' come apart without too much pain. The best armor against having parts become permanently attached is probably just to take them apart from time to time and clean' em up. A bit of grease also wouldn't hurt either, (particularly in the pin hole) but I can't and don't recommend that particular step for others. For me, I brushed on the POR-15 and will see how well it works and holds up in there. After all, somebody has to do the thing that later becomes the example of why you shouldn't. How else do we find out such things?

I'll be the mule on this one and see how it works in the long run.

WilliamA