Oh the Wheel Wells!
It all started one day many months ago when I inadvertently discovered rust lurking below the paint surface. Because my 76 spent who knows how many years with its tail end exposed to the elements, as it sat in a car-port style storage facility, the trunk area had obvious surface rust spots. One of the first over ambitions things that I started doing when I first got the car, was to strip paint on the whole trunk top. Sure enough, the rust spots were pitted and nasty, fortunately none went all the way through.
I have to say, what really amazed me was to find these randomly scattered really small surface rust spots in areas where the actual paint appeared normal to the casual eye, prior to stripping it. This was a head scratcher for me. How can that be!??. The paint looked normal and surface smooth and even, yet it really was not as it appeared beneath.
I decided to do a test after removing the trunk, knowing that it would be risky. You guessed it, I began to strip the nice paint finish surfaces inside the trunk area, including around the sides of the spare tire cavity where finish was rich and shiny and almost pristine looking. My fears were confirmed, there were these tiny little rust spots randomly scattered about and of various shapes all over in the trunk area, with no evident pattern in their spacing or locations. Interestingly, none were any larger than a small fire ant in any one dimension.
That settled it, it was then that the paint stripping priority began. Months into this adventure and treating the surface with Ospho (my favorite) and epoxy primer sealer as I progressed, I was mostly done in November, with the exception of the front clip areas and whole underside. I completely stripped the front and treated for rust. Last week as I surveyed my general progress, it occurred to me that I had done nothing with the wheel wells!
In the last few days I have been stripping the nice-looking textured surface of the wheel wells. They were in such nice shape as was the trunk and I sure hated to remove all the nice paint and semi-soft filler texture material, but it all had to come out. In the months of doing this, my findings have been consistently the same, all throughout the entire car surfaces, those tiny little irregular shaped surface rust appear. I suppose it is possible that left alone they could remain dormant with no cancer growth, peacefully under the paint. Somehow, being overly cautious I have my doubts.
I almost forgot to mention my paint removal technique as someone may surely wonder looking at the pics. The background on how I came to adapt it and why I continue to u se it is a subject for a different blog. This involves paint removal by scraping, using sharp edges/tools of various shapes and sizes. The scratches on the surfaces may be obvious in the pictures. I welcome your thoughts on this subject as well as any other suggestions. I'm always looking for different ways to doing things, experimenting and learning new techniques. One thing that I try to be mindful of since humidity is often high in Houston, is that after treating for rust, I promptly try to apply the sealer. I don't know how that will work out with these coming cold days!!??
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