Practically Classics Forum

Hope you can help. Been looking at rust removing gel type stuff ie deox, any good? Also the rust converters like rustbusters. There is so many treatments out there don't know where to start! Then once it is removed/converted there's the good old primer to follow, help? By the way all to be used with sound metal and paint around the rust. Any advice please.

Isn't Deox the powdered stuff that you mix with water to make a bath to soak your bits in? (No, not those bits...)
I've used it with some success but it seems very slow to act if the temperature is too low - i.e. anything except July or August in the UK. I've a freeling it works the same as molasses (google "molasses rust treatment") which farm suppliers sell for a fiver a gallon so I'll give that a try before buying more Deox.

They ran a group test in the magazine a while ago, I seem to remember Bilt Hamber coming out on top. I bought Jenolite gel and it is really good stuff. Gets rid of all the rust, even the depper stuff. As for primer I used Davids Isopon Zinc Primer.

Thank you the primer sounds good.

What are you trying to de-rust?

If it's the body, then as above. However, it the parts are removable, I'd go for using the electrolysis method every time, it's very effective and extremely cheap - I could probably dig out my pics of when I did it if you need reminding.

Cheers

Iv'e used Kurust for years and it works great - now owned by Hamerite who also do Zinc based primer in several colours. A handy combination which is readily available in Halfords too

Luxobarge wrote:What are you trying to de-rust?

If it's the body, then as above. However, it the parts are removable, I'd go for using the electrolysis method every time, it's very effective and extremely cheap - I could probably dig out my pics of when I did it if you need reminding.

Cheers

Yes please I haven't seen them ,sounds like i need to..

thank you all for the advice, cheers phil.

I'm doing a fair amount of de-rusting and painting both on removable parts and the body on my Mercedes.

Was impressed with the Deox powder - especially if you can keep it hot. The Gel also works but it seems to take a while longer, and you have to wrap it in cling film or else it dries out and is harder to remove. You really need to use a wire brush on a drill to get all the loosened rust out - using a hand held brush will take a while.

I've got a lot of surface rust on the underside of the car to do and after spending about 10 hours under the car (thankfully I have a pit in my lock-up) I've decided to use rust converter on some parts as it'll speed the process up a bit and I Can get it into recesses where it'd be impossible to get a wire brush on a drill to reach, like up in the rear suspension turrets.

I've tried various things to remove the ridiculous PVC underseal Mercedes used in the 80s. Wire brushes will eventually strip it, but a paint removing wheel (one of those circular ones that look a bit like sponge that's been glued up) seems to work best. I'm using that to remove paint and underseal where there's a visible break in the underseal or there's some rust.

Then it's either remove the rust with that or the wire brush attachment, or the deox gel. Then I'm brushing on electrox primer. Once I've got all the rust primered or converted I'm going to coat it in epoxy mastic and then in Bilt Hamber's under body wax.

That should mean I don't have to worry about that area for a few years. I've got the rear subframe off so I'm also planning to do a similar process on that.

I've not taken any photos of the areas I've used products on yet as I can't find my cheap camera and don't want to knacker the more expensive one.

At some points over the last few visits to my lock-up I've been longing for a sand/soda blaster to get the underseal and rust off. Then again, power and lighting would be a start (It's a 'primitive' garage).

Good luck, keep us posted on progress.

Mike

zipgun wrote:Yes please I haven't seen them ,sounds like i need to..

OK, here we go. I wanted to de-rust some Morris Minor wheels, I gave them a decent clean-up using wire brushes etc. to get the worst off, then I used the electrolytic bath method. Here is the wheel I did before the bath treatment:



Then get a bucket or bath large enough to contain the item you want to treat.. Fill it with water and add soda crystals to make an electrolyte. Here's my bath ready to go, with the wheel in it:



Then select a rod or plate of old steel to act as a sacrificial anode and connect it up to a DC electrical source. I used a battery charger. Connect the item to be treated to the -ve and the anode to the +ve side. Here's mine all connected up and just started to work:



Leave it a while, after an hour or two the liquid will go seriously scummy and brown, and the steel of the anode will start to erode away. This is what it looks like after a few hours:



I left mine overnight, and this is how the wheel came out after treatment:



And this is what was left of the anode after doing two wheels:



Here's the wheel after treatment, and dried off:





A bit more work with a wire brush on a drill and we get this:



Then a coat of etch primer:



Then spray on the top coat and job done:



I still have some more wheels to do, but just don't have the time these days!

Hope that helps