The last time I fixed a rock chip I had to extract pigment from animal skins to color match the wooden wheel.

There's a few rock chips on the crummy that didn't winter well. What's new in the wonderful world of coatings that I should know about? I figure to 1) sand down to metal, 2) prime with something magical, and 3) paint.

Step 2 used to be red or gray primer, but it seems there are lot of new and improved coatings available. Thanks all.

For small chips I hit it with Ranex rust converter then touch up with the little pot of paint that Toyota gave out with every new car, buggers no longer give it out so you have to chase up some on ebay.

That metal looks far worse on the other side, touch up paint won't help for more than a month or two.

Just buy a new one.

tag

Thanks, JStuart - that stuff looks interesting.

Bump for more!

Phosphoric acid?

Looks like it's similar to ospho which is available in the US.

OSPHO

So question what kind of other after winter process do you Minnesota and other Northern Folks go thru for maintenance on your vehicles?

I have a Kid in Minnesota who just purchased her own vehicle last year as she got a job right out of college.

Ive been giving her lots of advice and helping her but I was thinking there might be after winter things she might need to do.

Sand the rust out ,prime it and paint the whole outside of the truck with bedliner. That chit is like armor.

IMO (assuming they use a lot of salt out there) the best thing to do after winter is give the car a really good cleaning focusing on the undercarriage. Most people focus on keeping the paint nice which is fine but the real damage happens where dirt/salt cakes up around brake parts, body seams, frame if there is one, inside fenders etc etc. Ideally get the thing up on a hoist or blocks and power wash every thing you can get at. Or talk to a detail company about a price for them to do that for her.

I think so too. JOG it might be worth taking a door panel or whatever takes partly off so you can have a look at the inside almost seems like its rusted from the inside out.

I remember, but ignored, the rock chips that started those spots out so hopefully the rust isn't through yet. I'll be rapidly out of my league if it is.

Thanks for all the tips so far.

OK you might have a chance then. You can try my non professional hillbilly approach that worked on a Tacoma I had with a bit of rust on the rocker panels started by scuff marks getting in and out of the truck and letting dirt sit there I guess, no other rust around it. In other words from the outside, not some hidden inside issue. Anyways goes something like this..

With painters tape mask off a neat square or whatever shape about an inch beyond the damage on all sides. Start with 80 grit sand paper by hand and gently start stripping most of the paint and all of the rust you can. Then switch to around 150 grit and smooth it a little. Get a small can of cold galvanizing compound or a spray can of same from the hardware store and apply an even not too thick coat. Let it dry. Hit it again lightly with the 150 grit and put another coat on. This stuff has zinc like proper hot galvanizing compound and its supposed to neutralize the rust and it does that to some extent IME. I just used the best Tremclad match on top of that on my Toyota. Once you remove the tape ya you could see the "patch" but it looked half assed neatly done and the match was close so it wasn't an eye sore. I used the truck another couple years in a real bad rust environment and nothing changed.


If you go this way and use proper car paint on top just check if it will stick to galvanized. If not Tremclad and others have a primer that does, then you can top coat it with car paint or anything else actually. A body man will shudder reading this, but hey the whole works can be sanded off in a minute and done right later if anyone wants to. Good luck with it JOG

double post

Northern dave will fix it right up

Aliens in the race.

I'm not from the Cold, Frigid, North but spent a winter working in Rochester NY. When I got there the guys that I was working with said don't follow anyone too close. You have to give yourself room to dodge the odd fender that peals off the car in front of you or the gas tank that falls out from under it. (I dodged both while I was there.) Another piece of advice was that if your car was older than 4 years, you never fill your gas tank up. If an old car hit one of Rochester's named potholes with a full tank of gas, that tank was coming out from under the car almost every time.

Rochester's pot holes were another thing I was warned about. Some of those things were named and were old enough to vote. Just because it doesn't look all that big and you can see the other side of one as you approach it, doesn't mean that you should try to go thorough it with a nice car. I wanted to hang around during the Spring thaw to see if the road department in Rochester actually went around and dug out all the potholes that the citizens of Rochester had filled up on their own over the winter, but I had to head back South. There was this one pot hole next to a bus stop that was just fun to hit early in the morning... if it was full of water and slush. It was amazing how fast those people could move on those icy sidewalks when they saw you bearing down on that pothole.

Ok, ok some good stuff.

Any of you Minnesota boys that are close to the Twincities have a go to AutoGarage? Yes, other than your own.