spontaneous rust attack

[jvandyke]

My hood, under the passenger vents, and again down near the bottom edge, has (had) some rust bubbles and was clear through in one spot. It bugged me. Had the day off and well, grabbed the Dremel and ground that crap off.
I picked up some filler and have since done some coats, some sanding and shot it with some primer. I don't regret it as it is smooth and rust free but of course now I'd like to at least try and top coat it as decently as I can. I have some base coat in a can, some clear coat rattle can. At this point I'm waiting on primer coat to dry, will sand it, probably hit it again, maybe even sand through it and smooth it up some more as some little imperfections show better now with primer on. Then I will prime again, then, well, I was going to brush on a coat of base, sand, repeat, repeat. and work my way up to 600 wet sand, then clear it, and repeat, hoping that the spots kinda sorta feather into the existing paint in a 10 foot passable fashion.
Again, I knew it wasn't going to look new again, but those rust bubbles HAD TO GO! and go they did. Having never done anything like this before, it's been educational, I'm just hoping I can live with the results until I can get the whole thing done in a year or two.
I still think an obvious repair job beats rust bubbles and a HOLE so I'm feeling okay with this but it is unsettling taking the grinder to one's baby, no?
So, any advice on methods is appreciated.

[automata3.0turbo]

i have a dirty feeling that my gt will have a few rust bubbles

[sugg578]

I hope the next one I get doesn't do that.

[OriginalOpelGTOwner]

To JVANDYKE: I have read most of your postings here on this site day to day and I would like to share the following thoughts. I have owned my GT since 1971, bought it new, so I know what you are going through trying to make your GT perfect. I am suggesting to try to keep everything in perspective so when you feel the desire to work on it do so as a hobby and just enjoy, otherwise you are going to drive yourself nuts. I am sure GM never thought folks would still be driving these GT's 38 years after they introduced them and therefore they were never engineered for such a life cycle. My GT has never been driven in the snow or in the winter for that matter, always stored from in a garage over the winter. As a result, mine is in pretty good shape, but I still have to stay on top of things to insure safe mechanicals. I always make a point that when I am working on my GT it is just for fun and enjoyment. These cars are just machines not people. So just enjoy. And it does not have to be perfect to be cool.

[jvandyke]

Point taken. I like messing around with all these little things, it's not work, it's not a hassle and only occasionally have I gotten frustrated to the point of it not being fun. It's all good!

[opelspyder]

If you have some of the base coat, why not go to a paint store and buy some actual clear coat. That way you can blend the repair into the original paint if it has clear on it. Wetsand around the repair, actually 3-4 inches around tape off the rest of the car or area you do not want overspray on. apply your base coat only in the necessary areas, do not paint up to where you taped off as you do not want a real line here. Apply two to three coats of base, then remove tape and lightly sand around where tape was to make sure no line is present. Then apply your clear. The base a clear only take about 10 minutes between coats to begin second or third coat. When completely dry, you can then wetsand with fine sand paper the clear coat to remove the dusty edges(as I call them) and then take a buffer and polish it out. This will probably get you the best results.
Keith

[jvandyke]

Thanks for the tip.
I'm headed down the right path then.
She's sitting in primer now and looks pretty smooth, can't see any defects (hardly). Bear in mind, despite the pictures in my gallery, this baby is a 10 footer so I'm not really doing her harm trying to touch her up.

[jvandyke]

I have a rattle can of Rustoleum Crystal Clear Enamel, wondering if that is okay as a clear coat? The base coat is laquer I'm pretty sure. Whatever clear I use should be "sandable" to a point I guess. I'm thinking clear it, sand lightly, buff back to a shine. That's the theory anyway. So far I'm pretty impressed with myself, the spots I did are pretty smooth and already, despite being a dull base color, look better IMHO then rust bubbles and holes.

[jvandyke]

I shot it with the clear coat mentioned above. Wet sanded and it looks a lot better then rust bubbles but I need to figure out the process of blending better. still has a foggy edge of clear overspray and is generally a bit dull.
I used wet 600 then some fine cut compound and some such. There's another spot a few inches above where I've been working so I may go after that and try to blend that whole area together in one shot.

[jvandyke]

Was at Saturday night cruise in. What a riot. Not even out of the car and a kid of about 16 was all over me. He knew his stuff too. Odd how the GT attracts younger guys. It's the sexy lines I guess.
Anyway, my 12 year old was grumbling about another spot on the hood where the PO had, instead of fixing a dent, filled it with filler. Filler had cracked and lifted. This is the spot right above the ones I've been working on, so, since I really want my boys to like my fetish, I attacked this one last night, ground out all the filler, there was some rust down there (thus the lifting), I ground it all down, primed, filled, sanded, filled, sanded, sanded, sanded, primed.
Now to try again the base/clear/blend. This isn't hard. Hard to make look really nice but not hard to make look "better then before" at least.