Body and paint triage

other_shoe

Member
May 4, 2007
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After taking off the passenger side fender to get a good look at a cowl leak, I discovered a number of other unpleasant bits of sloppy workmanship.

First, it would appear that every body part that was installed in the previous round of work did not have its stickers removed before being welded in and painted. I took off five stickers today and now have patches of bare metal with surface rust on panels that are not normally visible. Obviously, I need to remove the surface rust and treat these areas.

There is a pretty good shop in town that can provide a matching pain in a rattle can, so I'm tempted to do these mistakes as well as the insides of the fenders and other unpainted areas I find in a paint that matches the interior.

I know others use POR 15 or other treatments for non-exterior panels and I'd like to know more about why.

In a related matter, I must treat my floorboards which are clean and free of anything but the most superficial of surface rust. Here again, I'd appreciate advice on painting/finishing both the top and the bottom.

Finally, I'm trying to figure out the proper paints for my grille and the opening panels since I had to remove a lot of this trim to get the fenders off. It seems like the main surface of the grille panels are argent (dull silver). Is this correct? Then NPD lists the paint for the grille as "charcoal blue." Is this really blue or is it just a designation?
 
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I know for the floor boards, I had lots of surface rust, but nothing too major to where I can sand it down. I ended up smoothing it out, and then putting some rustoleum rust protectant on it, and then painting it with a regular satin black paint on it from rustoleum to even give it more protection. Should be good as long as you put some rust preventive liquid on it. I put a lot on just too be safe. Some people might do it different, but I like my method. Works good enough.