Surface Rust

[Righteous]

Hello,

I am currently refreshing some of the mechanical and interior components of my 1965 Cooper S. The body was sandblasted and painted ~25 years ago although the coverage was questionable in some spots. There are several areas that have some surface rust including the lower body seams, interior crossmember, companion boxes, and front bumper mount seam. What's the best way to treat these areas? Rust dissolvers? Rust encapsulators? Cavity wax for the companion boxes/sills? Any advice greatly appreciated.

Car copy.jpg

Lower Seam copy.jpg

Companion 2 copy.jpg

Bumper Mount copy.jpg

Crossmember copy.jpg

[Nick W]

Looks like they didn't seal the front bumper lip...you could carefully clean it up and seal it with body sealer and then touch up the sealer with some 2k paint.
The other areas might look better if you compound the rust off with some T cut, then just touch them up.
Other than this it would be to grind the rust out and respray it...

[Dearg1275]

I wouldn’t worry about the rust on the interior too much but the outer seams will be trouble if you don’t sort them. If you have a compressor then I suggest a spot sand blaster to eliminate the red terror. Then my preference now would be to throughly degrease and apply a couple of coats of epoxy primer, then repaint. You will probably end up chasing the surface rust back further than you imagine but it’s a case of needs must if you want to get on top of it.

More worrying is the beading of corrosion in the sandwich of sill and upper body. Not much you can do about this with out being destructive but a good light penetrating cavity wax/oil treatment ( not the heavy stuff that sets like candle wax) will slow things.

In the parcel bins where it is unseen I would again use a penetrating cavity wax. It collects the dust but wipes clean easily enough with a solvent.

Just be glad you don’t use your car in Scotland.

D

[Righteous]

I wouldn’t worry about the rust on the interior too much but the outer seams will be trouble if you don’t sort them. If you have a compressor then I suggest a spot sand blaster to eliminate the red terror. Then my preference now would be to throughly degrease and apply a couple of coats of epoxy primer, then repaint. You will probably end up chasing the surface rust back further than you imagine but it’s a case of needs must if you want to get on top of it.

More worrying is the beading of corrosion in the sandwich of sill and upper body. Not much you can do about this with out being destructive but a good light penetrating cavity wax/oil treatment ( not the heavy stuff that sets like candle wax) will slow things.

In the parcel bins where it is unseen I would again use a penetrating cavity wax. It collects the dust but wipes clean easily enough with a solvent.

Just be glad you don’t use your car in Scotland.

D

Looks like they didn't seal the front bumper lip...you could carefully clean it up and seal it with body sealer and then touch up the sealer with some 2k paint.
The other areas might look better if you compound the rust off with some T cut, then just touch them up.
Other than this it would be to grind the rust out and respray it...

Thanks for your replies and suggestions. I am leaning towards blasting the areas and repainting.

[MiNiKiN]

inside: areas where you don't mind greasy stuff: use "Fluid film" - it creeps inbetween seems and encapsules already rusty areas (it keeps off the oxidising O2)
outside: instead of sandblasting, you could scrub off course rust and then apply rust remover (usually some sort of phosphoric acid) several times, this leaves a phosphatised surface ready for the usal edge primer and top coat application. Just avoid the rust remover to get into seams, as it needs to washed-off/neutralized after application.