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I just bought an angle grinder for some heavy duty surface rust/paint removal. Did I buy the right tool for the job? I bought 1-50 and 1-80 sanding wheels to go with it

thanks

this is me btw, didn't log in when I posted. As you can tell I'm a body work noobie. The rust I have is pretty pitted but still mostly surface. At some point I am going to need to cut out sections, but right now I am just trying to smooth it down some so I can hit it with rustbullet. I know I will need the grinder later for removing/replacing body sections, but is it the right tool now?

Thanks

The grinder will work for ya but you are going to remove a lotta material in the process. If it is just surface rust try chemically removing it with Naval Jelly or the like.

You don't lose any good metal that way. After you get the rust off, clean it good, phosphate it and hit with your rust preventer of choice...

Will navel jelly take care of pitted surface rust fairly well? Also, I wanted to put rustbullet over the spots, but I have no way to spray it. Are there any ad-hoc ways to spray/ how hard is it to make a brush job smooth enough to paint over?

Should work for hte pitted stuff with no problems. You may have to apply a few coats and work it with a brush a bit. Naval Jelly will take anything off anything eventually I think

If you just want protection, brush on 2 light coats. When it comes time to paint, sand it good and spray it then. You're prolly going to have to do some filler work for the pits at that time anyway.

kool. Well I just hit it with 2 coats of navel and I can see some new metal... about 50 more and I may get the particular spot I'm on rust free. The spot is on the nose piece, which I plan to replace next summer anyway. Is it worth getting rid of all the rust in this spot, or should I just neutralize it with rustbullet? Ohh, and I took the grinder back an got a $5 wire brush for my drill. Seemed to do fine with the paint and rust, but how do I avoid swirls?

Thanks for your help so far

Rock on, you'll get there! I am anal about getting rid of all rust before topcoating. Some say the rust neutralizers actually need some surface rust to stick but I get rid of it all if possible.

If you are going to cut it out anyway in a year, well ... your call.

P.S.: Post some pix

if you wanna see pics, ebay still has the auction site up. There are a good number of quality pics at

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... AMEWA%3AIT

If you want more I can take some others of the (little) work I've done so far... most of the work so far has been mechanical though, so it still looks like the ebay pics

Surface rust should be (carefully) sandblasted down to bare metal, metal prepped, & primed with epoxy. (everything should be primed with epoxy Just don't heat the spot up when blasting or it will swell/warp. Do a little at a time only for a few seconds at a time.

~ Paul
aka "Tha Driver"

Giggle Cream - it makes dessert *funny*!

Coooool. I sold my bay window and kick myself almost every day for that

Tha Driver is right about sandblast and epoxy. If you have the means, I highly suggest it, especially on the nose of a bay - pick up lots of rocks and chips on that snout.

Mine was in a bit worse shape than yours when I got it and after blasting / priming there was no rust poking through after 3 years and 70K miles.

Be sure to check underneath the windshield. I had some rust behind the dash that needed a little work too.

Granted, sand blasting is best, but there is a HUGE difference between best and whatIcanaffordbecauseIaminmedschool. So for right now I think I have to settle for wirebrush/navel jelly/rustbullet for much of the (keep in mind its VERY pitted) surface rust and cutting out a few sections as time and resources allow.

Thanks for the help so far.

Kim

In short, I was glad that I decided to have the body blasted... Prior to my decision on blasting I spent countless hours working on stripping paint and removing pitted rust from roof gutters, flanges, under the body, and many other areas. At which point I wasn't satisfied with the amount of rust that I was removing. Since the body was already completely gutted, I then considered the tradeoff between time and blasting.. In the end I decided to have it blasted. While I do have a fairly sized pressure pot blaster, I was able to pull a few contacts and have a local shop do it for 150.



Of course with any blasting it is good to not having any warping. Therefore the roof was not blasted.

i have roof rust i will grind it down with a wire wheel then put naval jelly over it and then clean the naval jelly off then prime it and paint it.
can i use etching primer over the cleaned rust or do ii have to use epoxy primer.
whats the difference between epoxy primer and etching pimer

thanks

ryan