First time "minor" rust repair...

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 05, 2023 9:16 pm
Below is a photo of what I think at this point has to be considered rust on my objectively worthless but very sentimental to me 2002 Impala. The car is very rarely driven in the winter because I live in the midwest were they salt the roads as a competitive sport in the winter... Despite my best efforts this has grown over the past few years, maybe two summers ago I noticed a small part of brown peeking through in the center of the bubbly patch, I rubbed it down with the end of a touch up pen, then painted over it, it hasn't gotten much bigger but I can't just ignore it anymore

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My thought was to use the least aggressive sandpaper I could and sand down until down to bare metal and primer then paint again. I can push in on it and rock the car so I figure it is still solid metal. I could never get it to look like nobody had been there but it's on the inside of the wheel arch, I just want to try to stop it from getting any worse. It's a 2002 Impala, so it's not remotely worth taking it to someone, nor do I imagine any professional would waste their time with this. Just hoping for advice to best accomplish this since I have never tried anything like this before.

Thanks

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2023 9:33 am
The bubbling paint indicates rust underneath and possible coming from the back side.

You will need to strip the paint and then remove all the rust. Also be aware that silver metallic paint is one of the hardest to get a good color match on.

If the rust isn't too bad and you can keep your work area inside the wheel arch, any mismatch in paint won't be as visible. The problem there is that most often the rust is much worse than you think.
1968 Coronet R/T


ACTS 16:31

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