I drive a 1985 VW Golf (diesel), and it's in pretty good condition for being 21 years old. There are three spots on the front left fender that have rust on them. Someone had hit the car and the paint came off, so it became rusty. These spots are not only an eye sore, but they are sure to spread in the salty Nebraska winters.
My goal in fixing these was function, and not so much glamour. The car is kind of a beater, so I wasn't too concerned with making it look perfect. As long as the rust was gone, it would look better, and I wouldn't lose a fender.
My goal in fixing these was function, and not so much glamour. The car is kind of a beater, so I wasn't too concerned with making it look perfect. As long as the rust was gone, it would look better, and I wouldn't lose a fender.
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Having never done this, or any other body work on a car, it took me a little longer to figure out what exactly I was going to do. My original plan was to take the entire fender off, but after inspecting it, that would be too much of a hassle and would require me to disassemble a lot of the front of the car.
Instead, I jacked the car up then I pulled the wheel. I unscrewed the plastic thing protecting the wheel well and set it off to the side. That gave me really good access to see up behind the sheet metal on the car. I was originally going to pound out the dent on the upper part of the fender, but space was tight and I couldn't easily do it. Having the wheel well open will help when I'm grinding and painting.
Instead, I jacked the car up
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The best way to derust a chainmail shirt is to do it with electrolisis. You will need A car battery charger, Washing Soda, 1 12 inch or longer Piece steel rod, or rebar.
In a 5 Gal bucket filled with watter put 1 cup of Washing Soda (not bicarbonate sodium), Mix thoroughly, Clamp the Positive side to the Steel rod, Clamp the Negative side to the ChainMail shirt, Drop it on the water, Hang the steel rod from the edge of the bucket making sure that it is close tho the chainmail but not touching. Turn on the charger and watch the rust go up in rusted bubble crust on top of the watter. Give it about six to eight hours.
You are completely done.
put the lid on tight, turn the bucket on it's side, and roll the bucket to aggitate the shirt and the abrasive.
after you get the shirt cleaned remove it from the bucket, clean it off, oil it well.
1 A wire wheel wont remove too much base metal
2 you can get rust out of pitted metal better with the wire wheel than a grinding or sanding disc
However, I will caution that if you do use a wire wheel that you must wear safety glasses, and if you put the wire wheel on a drill, to always rotate the wheel in the same direction. as the wheel gets worn the wires will bend, reversing direction will cause a lot of wires to break off and go anywhere the drill is throwing them
I'm curious, how many miles per gallon do you get on your VW Golf? I'm thinking about buying a diesel. Somebody told me they burn cleaner than gasoline and the engines(if well-maintained) can last a million miles.
Sand the rust using normal sand paper, start with something like 150 and end with 2000 (these are the size of the sand on the sand paper)
Then spray paint it.
Aerosols can't deliver the flake, so you'll never get a match. If your mask was outside the paint area (i.e new paint over good paint around the repair) you could soften the line with rubbing compound and a microfiber cloth.
One thing to add to your next repair is a degreaser. This is a solvent that removes all the wax and grease and road grime everywhere you want the paint to stick. They sell it where they sell the paint.
My second suggestion would be to 'feather out' your sanding. Try to sand each layer to an inch-wide stripe. This gives you less of a step to deal with in filler and paint. Change to a less aggressive abrasive and smooth it all out.
Most importantly though, you have stopped the rust in its tracks, and from 20 feet, no-one can see the repair. BTW with older cars, one way of assessing their state is in feet: "Its a 20-footer" explains how close you have to get to see noticeable defects. As you might expect, a 10-footer would be in really good shape.
http://www.autozone.com/autozone/accessories/Rust-Oleum-8-oz-rust-stripper/_/N-25uj?itemIdentifier=660016&_requestid=550873
because rust slowly desolves your metal and destories the pain job along with the back metal now i dont know about you but having square cut outs of replaces metal looks worse then a crap paint job
so do it right
hand sandpaper it
then use hole filller prefeerd for cars and undercoast
then hand sandit again.... and then use a sander
until smooth and roughed
put under coat on usualy white
then get car coulour then clear coat
this will make it very pro,d and not like bad or noticable