Ok, underneath the car (floorpans), the car is undercoated, but the coating is starting to chip off, and everywhere that it has chipped off is light rust, its only bad in one spot about 2mm has it gotten all the way through.
I want to get rid of the rust, that hole, and any bad undercoating then use POR-15 on it. Do you think a wire wheel would significatly remove the rust, and any bad undercoating (I can pull chips of it off so it shouldn't present too much of a challenge)?

The next problem is there is rust on the lips of fenders and quarters by the wheels. I was thinking since its only on the lip I could get away with sanding it down and using a rattle can, when its down to bare metal should I put a coat of the POR-15 on it first to prevent future rust, or just prime and paint it? Also should I use the wire wheel on the sheetmetal here to remove rust, or should I stick with just sandpaper?

Thanks for your help.

P.S. Before anyone jumps in with the ol' "have a shop do it you will screw it up", I would love to have it done professionally, but its better to do it myself now so later down the road when I can afford a professional job there is metal left for them to work with rather than an 8in rust hole.

 

If you have undercoating there it might get messy using a wirewheel so maybe try to clean that up first with some solvent and then use a wirewheel to remove any loos rust. Remember if there is rust on one side and you treat and stop it with POR-15 make sure you take a look at the other side as well specially the wheel arches as it will eat from the inside out.

 

Yup, I plan on taking care of both sides. I'm planning on taking out the entire interior minus the dash, fixing any rust, I may just coat it with Por-15 on the floor, then I can clean everything really well while its out.
Do you think a wire wheel will take care of finer rust, or should I use a sander, grinder, or what on it?

 

YES! Stop the rust! You dont want it to look like this. I am still in the process of rescuing this poor car



New doors, new fenders, new hood, new front clip...the list goes on and on. Surprisingly, there wasn't a single rust hole or spot in the floorpans.

 

Wow thats bad, and exactly where my rust is starting to form. Thanks for the encouragement to get rid of it

 

looks like that car was used to let a boat off in a salt water lake.

 

When I spot rust I sand it all away and spray some clear over the area until I can fix it properly. The clear won't stand out, and protects the metal from oxygen for the time being. If you can catch it before it goes through the metal then you're doing good.

 

You can chalk that one up to sitting on the streets in Minnesota having snowplows drive by all winter dumping salt all over it. The previous owner had it sitting out on the streets all winter for 8 years. The passenger side has almost no rust.

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=234847

 

We got a 76 Formula parts car, that had been used to let a boat off in a salt water lake, it was pretty rusted. How do you plan to fix that? Are you going to get new metal and weld it in place of the rusted parts?

 

It looks like he will have to get a new or a good used full rear quarter panel, a new or used door "pointless to fix that one when you can easily score a better one without having to fix it"

The fun part looks like it will be the floor board and the rocker panel under the door. He might be able to patch up the bad metal or have to cut it all out and get new or used panels to go in its place.


After seeing his pics it makes me glad that my 82 Z only had rusted out passenger floor pans.