Trunk Restoration Help

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tyler_lueken

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My trunk is badly rusted. There are/were two leaks that caused this problem. One was under the lid, an edge wasn't completely flattened down, so I applied some silicone in the gap, and now it is fixed. The other is on the taillight, and that is getting fixed soon. Any ideas on that fix?

What my main question is, how to go about cleaning the trunk? I want to clean it and get it sealed so it wont rust completely through. I plan on taking the battery tray, and the surrounding plastics out, sanding the rust away, then spraying Dupli-Color undercoating. Now time for the questions...

Has anyone tried using muriatic acid to clean up the rust? We use it to clean our floors at work about once or twice a year, and it is a very strong cleaner. However, I don't want to eat through the metal on my spare tire container.

Will sourcing the bolts for the battery tray be a problem? I am pretty sure any hardware store should carry them, correct?

What to use to strip the bolts out? A few of the bolts are going to break, I just know it. Left hand drill kit? Where can I borrow one for a day? Auto-zone?

Anyone ever use Dupli undercoating? My main worry is, if I don't get all the rust out, will this stuff seal it in. I don't want the rust to spread under the undercoating, and just negate the fact that I sealed it. There is the metal plate that has the long bolt coming out to slide your spare over. There are pockets under that plate that won't get cleaned or coated. Is this going to be a problem, or should I just cut the plate where it forms these pockets?

Thanks in advance
 
muriatic acid is a monoprotic acid, and has, traditionally, been used in preparing metals for prefabrication processing- galvanizing etc...

ideally, you'd need concentrations close to the evaporation limit (~35%) to achieve this, and i'd certainly not use this without proper precautions, both physical and air.

be careful with this stuff...

i do understand your concern of getting the rust out. have you talked to a few body shops and what they suggest?
 
You may want to look at the rust converting primers too. Put that down before the Duplicolor stuff.
 
I second that... the black etching primer works pretty good. Just wire brush off the worst of the rust, wipe off dust with a dry cloth, then pain it on. Spray over it with regular primer if the car is light colored, or just skip to the closest spray paint color. Should last as long as the rest of the car assuming you fixed the leak.
 
Getting the rust out

As you correctly pointed out, there are places where hydrochloric acid can't be removed, and because of its veblefroticity:)D), it probably makes sense to use mechanical means of removing the rust. Using POR 15 or some other equivalent, as was said, makes for the cleanest solution and I'd eschew the use of undercoating. It doesn't harden and will forevermore make a mess.

KS
 
Thanks for the input guys. Maybe if I am lucky, I can use alchemy to turn the rust into gold, and have a gold plated trunk! haha

So, skip the chemical process to prevent trapped cleaner that could possibly eat through. Just sand and scrape as much as I can. Use a rust primer, and then just paint it. Sounds good!

When I have the time and money (broke college student paying of a credit card, and saving up for the VCG job) to do this, I will post some before, during, and afters.
 
Maybe look for someone with a sand blaster?

Just a thought but I think you will do just as well with a wire brush and some effort.

Prime and be done with it.
 
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