Re: Rust converter

Posted by Paul on Oct. 27, 1998 at 09:53:02

In Reply to: Rust converter
posted by Dan Obermeyer on Oct. 27, 1998 at 00:41:38

This is my 3rd attempt at responding - software and power cycles ate the first two.
May I suggest that the sandblasting equipment may be the best way to go, but that you need to make sure you're using at least a 5HP dual stage compressor, and a pressure fed sandblaster?
My novice (3 cars) experience is that paint strippers, 3-M abrasive wheels, chemical acids and rust converters, and so on all have their place, but for wholesale cleaning of large amounts of heavy metal with rust (i.e. avoiding hood, roof, and a few other spots), using a fine grade sand and a good blaster can't be beat. I can't imagine that there will be a warpage problem with a model A, so if the sandblasting isn't working, consider a bigger sandblaster. I just used about 500 pounds of sand (about $30 worth) on my 1969 mustang shell, which I am incredibly pleased with how well it did, considering the amount of rust and crummy paint it had.
It is just wonderful using this sandblaster, cleaning the whole engine bay in an hour or so (a bit more to do), the rear underbody in another hour, and so on. Compared to doing this all by hand, it is just amazing. I don't think I'd do this on a rare car, like a Boss 429 Mustang, but for any driver I work on in the future, I'll do it in a heartbeat.
The basic idea is to get down to the nice clean grey metal, and then put paint on top of that. Leaving any kind of oxidation, converted or not, is invitation to problems in the future.
I suggest reading everything you can at the URL (maybe related to this site, I can't tell) - they have lots of good information there.

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