I知 in the process of completely refurbing my '73. The car is disassembled to a tub state. The rotted front pan has been drilled and cut out, and the battery boxes have been cut off and replaced with flat sheet metal.
The battery box panels have been have been fit and welded in place. Surface prep was done with a grinder and denatured alcohol. I used 20ga galvanized sheet metal for the patch panels, and welded them with a Lincoln 100 HD converted to MIG with C02/argon mix for shielding gas. After the welding was done I sprayed the seam with a cold galvanizing compound, ground it flat, and used an aerosol primer on it. I am starting to notice an orange (rust) color around the welds already and I知 a little confused and frustrated. Have I done something wrong on the battery boxes, or is this normal? I want to make sure I致e got this process down to a routine exercise before I strike an arc anywhere near the front pan.
Another area of concern is the surface rust that I have removed from one of the one of the rear kidney bowls and the front platform above the gas tank under the master cylinder reservoir. The kidney bowl is obvious contamination from the surrounding backseat area (leaky window seal that I caught before the longitudinal wheelhouse was eaten up), but I知 not sure what happened up front. It looks like brake fluid has overflowed, eaten away paint, and surface rust has resulted over time. I used my angle grinder with a wire wheel to clean it up real good and followed with a coat of the aerosol primer. Rust is showing through the primer after a week.
I want to make sure that rust never eats up the front of this car again. I live in a very humid climate and I have limited time (1 solid day a week) to tool on this car. I知 worried about controlling the rust as I expose unprotected metal while my work progresses.
I need to change something about the way I知 trying to control the rust situation in my car as I知 working on it. It seems like its trying to rust out from under me. I really need about 80hrs straight to work on the car, but that痴 not going to happen as long as I知 among the employed. What can I do to more efficiently control the re-appearing rust as I知 working on this car on the weekends?
If I shoot the front clip with some POR15 can I stop worrying about this and work on the car as I have time? Is this stuff that good? I was planning on shooting at least one coat of POR after all of the metal work was done up front anyway, will a base coat help me avoid the problems I知 having? Will the POR stop the surface rust from coming back in the areas like under the master cylinder reservoir?