I'm ready to start getting some of this kind of rust off of my car. The idea is to get the paint and rust off these kind of areas, rust inhibit them in some way (por-15? rust inhibiting primer?), then once that's done determine what I can fix and what I will need a body shop to fix. (Still need the name of a reputable body shop if anyone live ANYWHERE remotely near Nashville, TN)

SO, the question is:

What kind of grinder/wire/whatever thing would be best for this? I don't have an air compressor yet so I'll be using a standard drill.

Of course, you all are welcome to say "Do other stuff until you get a compressor". (I'm going to post a Q on those in another post) And that's fine. I'm just ready to get started on the car and figured if I can work with a drill or something that'd be great.

I might go with a very coarse wire wheel, maybe three or four inches in diameter. Even a coarse wooden handled brush might help. You could do this and put conversion coating on the cleaned up areas. Watch your drill for getting too warm--burning up.

I wouldnt get too involved in that area. Let the body shop handle it. All of that metal will need to be replaced. You have 3 different pieces of the car that come together right in that spot and all 3 pieces are rusted from looking at your pic. The cowl/the tub/the fender all meet right there. There is no spot welds that you drill out easily. If you do want to do *something* buy the wooden handled wire brush the guy above me was describing and knock off the top layer of loose rust. That particular area is VERY difficult to repair. My body shops normally ask me for a clean piece from another tub that they can install.

You need to hook up with Perry Kiehl. He is just north of you and does a lot of 914 work in TN.



B

If you're going to have a body shop fix that, than I wouldn't mess with it. But if you really want to, go buy a grinder and wire wheel as pictured in this thread.

For rust/paint removal in tight spots, the smaller wire wheels are best
For bigger surfaces, I like the scotch-brite disks (they look like a spounge)
The big wire wheel that Gint is referring to, is pretty crude and will easily damage the sheetmetal if you're not carefull

But I'd have to agree with the others, this spot is hard to fix, so leave it to a pro

cheers,

Jeroen

Good point Jeroen, I forgot about those. Three 3M pads (similar to Scotch Brite) I used were great for just removing paint. I used those on the 4" grinder also.

If that corner looks like that,

I'd open the hood and look under the rubber weatherstripping that runs around the windshield cowl and the fender rain gutter.

That's where mine was rusty.

Ken

The area under the weatherstripping is quite rusty as well. I am going to have to figure out something to do there too. (I'll grab a pic today while I'm taking more stuff off the car).

Who is Perry Kiehl? My plan is to clean the car up and get a good idea of the rust issues, then have a body shop do any of the difficult work. I am not opposed to taking the car somewhere a couple of hours away... I just trailered it 14 hours from St. Petersburg two weeks ago!

Thanks Again!

Nasty looking stuff below

I'm going to get a 4 or 4.5" grinder this week and those 3M pads. Once I get all the layers of paint /etc off I'll take some more pics and post them here.

Just like kwales said:

I am going to start grinding / sanding the rust off this weekend, and need something to 'coat' or paint the car with to keep the bare metal from starting to rust again. I'll use POR-15 in areas that I won't be having work done, but is there a decent rust inhibiting primer (rattle-can or brush on) that I can coat the to-be-repaired areas?