Advice on paint and surface rust repair, HJ75 Troopy 1989

[Touz]

Hi everyone, looking for advice on fixing some paint and surface rust treatment. Not looking for a pro-job, I just want to stop the progress and get it looking okay at a glance.

I gather the process is sand back, tape up, primer, then spray. I've heard people also treating before the primer with something to deaden the rust? What would be good to use?

Also, I've got the colour code for the original colour but I suppose it won't quite match up given the age of the vehicle (1989). Anyone have experience trying to match up the colour to the current condition? I'm not expecting to get a 100% match, and I will try to paint in sections that don't draw attention to the difference in color.

Anyway, anyone have experience doing something like this?

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

Take the rust off with an abrasive paint stripping disc (not a flap disc). If there is any darkening of the metal from the rust, I would treat it with a phosphoric acid based converter, but be sparing and only apply it to the dark oxidised metal. I put epoxy on bare metal, then a base coat (colour) over that - needs to be done within a day or two. If you want to get rid of the rough texture from the rust you will need a building primer on top of the epoxy or a smear of filler. Depending on the finish of the original paint you might want to consider a matt or mix of gloss/matt clear coat to try to match the paint. Colour matching will not be the problem - the finish will be.

The paint on that Troopie is rough though, and a patch of good paint will stand out.

 

[Touz]

Take the rust off with an abrasive paint stripping disc (not a flap disc). If there is any darkening of the metal from the rust, I would treat it with a phosphoric acid based converter, but be sparing and only apply it to the dark oxidised metal. I put epoxy on bare metal, then a base coat (colour) over that - needs to be done within a day or two. If you want to get rid of the rough texture from the rust you will need a building primer on top of the epoxy or a smear of filler. Depending on the finish of the original paint you might want to consider a matt or mix of gloss/matt clear coat to try to match the paint. Colour matching will not be the problem - the finish will be.

The paint on that Troopie is rough though, and a patch of good paint will stand out.

Thanks for the advice. You are right that good paint will stand out. At this point I just want to slow the progress of decay. I figure I'll try to do larger sections that follow the contours of the panels to make it stand out less

 

[Felde]

^^ What @Eurasiaoverland suggested for the general approach.
However, considering the size & pattern of the affected surface, this eventually will rather end up in a full paintjob. If you try to only treat & paint those patches with a not exactly matching color & finish, it might look like an odd winter camouflage pattern
I personally don't mind a well used sturdy truck to look well used...
What about just removing the rust and only putting some clear coat ?
It buys you the time until you can do / affort a proper paintjob, the clear allows for proper monitoring, and -really- I think it would look cool.
(Clear only works well. I did it on a spot on my rig 2+ years ago. No problems)
Just my 2ct.
Cheers Ralf

 

[Touz]

^^ What @Eurasiaoverland suggested for the general approach.
However, considering the size & pattern of the affected surface, this eventually will rather end up in a full paintjob. If you try to only treat & paint those patches with a not exactly matching color & finish, it might look like an odd winter camouflage pattern
I personally don't mind a well used sturdy truck to look well used...
What about just removing the rust and only putting some clear coat ?
It buys you the time until you can do / affort a proper paintjob, the clear allows for proper monitoring, and -really- I think it would look cool.
(Clear only works well. I did it on a spot on my rig 2+ years ago. No problems)
Just my 2ct.
Cheers Ralf

I hadn't considered that. I think I'll start with some rust treatment and see how it goes

 

[Tigris]

^ All good advice.
One little tip to help matching the finish to the old stuff is to thoroughly clean the exterior then polish the whole thing with a medium compound (using a variable speed buffer). This will help unifying the sheen, texture and hue of the clear coat. Body shops commonly use this technique whenever they need to blend a spot repair.

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

I hadn't considered that. I think I'll start with some rust treatment and see how it goes

A good place to start, but bear in mind that rust converters are not a top coat and are designed to be quickly overpainted. Rust converter and clear coat may work, but the rust will go a dark black. If you put primer on the bare metal, know that many primers are porous (e.g. etch primer) and are not designed to be left as a topcoat. Epoxy is non porous and you can keep metal coated in epoxy as long as you like (so long as the film thickness is sufficient) but epoxy does not like UV and the finish is easily scratched. Also, down the line, sanding down hard epoxy is not fun.