Body Preservation?

[GunnerRob]

I'd like to find out how to permanently prevent rust from reoccuring in my 280z. And if that's possible.

I've read here on this site that Por-15 has about the best products for this purpose but I don't recall seeing how long it continues to prevent rust.

From all the posts I've read, I'm thinking I should strip out all the interior and pull off the headlight buckets and fenders. Then treat all the interior surfaces inside the car and all the hidden surfaces of the bodywork with the Por-15 treatment.

Thanks in advance for all your help!

P.S. I live in an arid environment and don't intend to drive the car in snowy conditions. And it's a daily driver.

[EScanlon]

What you've described is EXACTLY what I did.

I am just finishing geting the pictures downsized to fit on the server here and then I'll post them for others to see, along with a descriptive narrative to assist others.

How long does it last? I just did it this summer, so I have no firm idea. I can tell you this, if you get any of the POR paint into a bolt hole or around a screw / nut etc, you HAVE to tap the threads, or you will NOT get the screw / bolt in. Trust me, been there and have a warehouse full of T-shirts to prove it. I literally had to retap every single piece of thread everywhere I applied POR.

It WILL bend along with the metal underneath instead of cracking and peeling off. I put some on the metal gas tank straps and I had to bend those to fit around the tank. I also had to correct a bit of body work that had already been POR'ed and it held up to hammering with a pick and dolly.

I shot it into the doors, the rocker panels, the fresh air vents, the cowl, the rear fenders, the space below the quarter windows after having sandblasted, Marine Cleaned, and Metal Prepped all according to their instructions. Maybe I went further than necessary, but I don't want to have to do it again. The only difficulty was in spraying it with a conventional spray gun. Even after thinning with their solvent, the material was WAY too thick. I finally got an air blower with a syphon hose and syphon sprayed it just like if I were pressure washing. THAT really helped get it on in a hurry.

I even applied it to my rusty floor pans, with some rust through along with their Fiberglass Power Mesh and the floors are SOLID!

Would I recommend the products to others? You bet. Is it easy to use? Fairly so, you do have to keep a good supply of gloves on hand, and I would recommend you get the VINYL and not the latex. Also get an organic particle respirator, just like if you were in a paint booth, and if you have a full body respirator, use it. Remember the stuff is an ISOCYANATE based product. Meaning it has CYANIDE in it. It isn't hazardous unless you choose to take a major whiff of it, and if you do, well that's just STUPID.

If you get it on your skin and do not wipe it off ASAP, it will set. Once set on your skin the ONLY thing that will remove it is when you shed enough skin cells for it to wear / fall off.

Also, it isn't cheap. But then again, I've seen what others have tried to emulate using rattle can primer and this product is NOWHERE in the same category. Bluntly put, in my opinion and I've restored probably 20 cars in my life, this product is far superior to many other products I've used over the years.

And as a final note, I live in the Pacific Northwest where we might not get a lot of snow, but we get TONS of rain. Heck, we don't tan, we rust. (Last year the Oregonian published a headline that said 120 days straight with rain)

So, for what it's worth, hope this helps you make your decision.

[kmack]

Try encasing the entire car in shrink-wrap and pull a vacuum on the inside that way no air is left to attack the metal.

Other than that, you could always completely strip the car down to the shell and have it dipped in a rust preventative treatment bath. You'd need to make sure it got all the way inside the interior body panels and was completely covered.

Or you could just avoid rain, puddles, sprinklers, and forget washing the car....:stupid: Moisture is the killer of Z cars....

[St.stephen]

gunner...Well I can say that you have already gotten ahead of the game by living in an arid climate. I live on the east coast and I am surely president of the rust bucket club. There isn;t a Z I haven't owned that has not needed atleast floors.

The 78 I just acquired has rotted so bad that from the passenger side inside the car I can completely see the front tire and control arm. Measure from the transtunnel to the inside rocker and continue forward halfway up the firewall and then the inside fender well underneath the battery tray is completely gone.

here is my advice. strip out the interior, remove the fenders, and front cowl. Put the car up on jack stands and remove the tires. Get yourself on a creeper underneath the car and with a screwdriver, prybar, or scraper start at the back of the car in front of the rear tires and work your way forward tapping and removing any loose undercoating you encounter. you may be surprised at what you find. the car will and I repeat will rot under the undercoating first. Check underneath the rockers. there are drain holes that get clogged and water gets trapped. Check all weld seams around the trans tunnel and start inspecting the floors and floor supports underneath in the same manner. This will give you atleast an assessment of what the underneath looks like.

Move on to the interior. remove the jute pad underneath the carpet on the floors. Check up in the corners where the floor meets the toe board, firewall and trans tunnel. there are weld seems there that are the first to go. Check the floors around the rubber plugs in the floor as well. TOUCH EVERYTHING. just because it looks solid means nothing. Water off of your shoes and what not gets onto the carpet. it then soaks into the jute and never dries. this water just sits there and does it;s deed. After checking both floors and the inside rockers its time to move into the inner fender wells and frame rail cradles. basically above the TC rod support. Every Z car I;ve owned and seen on the east coast has either needed patching, completely replacing, or has been patched. Also on the inner fender wells check where the fender well meets the bottom of the frame rail. That lip all the way from the firewall to the rad support will rust also. While on the passenger side inner fender well, check underneath the battery tray. another hot spot.

Move to the front of the car. Inspect where the rad support meets the frame rail on the bottom. Rust loves to hide in there. IN the front of the car where the headlight buckets bolt to and where the front bumper pistons come through. Dirt and debris get trapped and voila.....rust.

Inside the engine compartment.....check where the frame rail meets the firewall. good spot to trap water, dirt and debris.

Under the cowl inside where the wiper motor lives, loves to trap leaves, sticks and dirt blocking the drainage holes and rust loves to live there where it is out of sight, out of mind.

Soooo, in saying all of that, whereever I find rust, no matter how minor, if it;s there it will spread. For surface rust, I would sandblast all rust and loose paint and or undercoating. For all weld seams inside and outside the car, after I have sandblasted clean, I would seal with a seam sealer (such as 3M) to ensure all water and moisture gets kept out. After everything is sealed up nice then I would treat with POR 15 and then topcoated. If you choose not to use POR 15's topcoat and use like a 2 part catalyzed acrylic enamel, then you must use the POR 15 tycoat primer.

I would then reundercoat everything to ensure all things are sealed up nice. The toe boards take a beating from all the road grime basically sandblasting the front underneath of the car.

Any panels rotted through, I cut out the bad metal and weld in new. Hope this helps a little.

[St.stephen]

For what it's worth, jsut an observation I made with several of the Z cars I have seen without a gas tank, if you look just past the spare tire well....the space between the rear panel and the tire well, I have found that is where the undercaoting stops, then eventually the paint and all that is left is the factory now cream colored primer. Seems as though when the cars went down the line the guns did not cover completely underneath.

[GunnerRob]

You guys are great!

From all the advice you all gave, I don't feel like the obssesive/compulsive person I thought I was concerning this matter. It is important to me to do this only once (it is a lot of work!) but I feel like it's worth it. After all, it IS a Z! And besides that this one has sentimental value to me. It was my dad's that he bought brand new and I inherited it when he passed on.

EScanlon, what is an air blower, and how much, would you estimate, of the Por-15 products did you use? I'd like to know how much to buy ahead of time so I can do this all at once.

Kmack, what mil thickness of shrink-wrap did you use?

St.stephen, it sounds to me like you've found all the "hidden" nooks and crannies where bad things can happen.

Thanks to all of you for your help. Now, if any of you would like to camp out in my garage to help me out with this major task I make a mean spaghetti sauce!!!

[St.stephen]

I'm pretty sure a gallon covers 72 square feet. which should be plenty for twice the protection!!!!. I have always bought the 6 pack deal which allows me smaller cans to deal with and less waste as the pot life is short.

I just picked up a six pack to do my 260. I have it a little easier than most as I live about 35 minutes from where the POR 15 is sold in Morristown NJ so I can just roll in and pick it up. No need for shipping!!!

[mperdue]

Watch out when it comes to buying a lot of this stuff. I'm not sure but I think it has a shelf life of 6 months. I've run into a lot of trouble on my project (lack of time!!) and I've got a gallon of this stuff sitting out in my garage that I haven't had a chance to use yet. It's been a few months so I need to get on the ball. Also if I remember right you have to have somewhat warm temperatures to use it so you probably won't have the best results in the dead of winter...

Michael

[EScanlon]

I probably used about a gallon and a half to do everything I did. I'd have to check the invoices but that sounds about right.

Although that might sound like way too much consider what I did:

Both front fenders not only the inside but also the area around the strut from the front of the car (hinge mount area) to the floor pan, the sugar scoops, and the turn signal valances as well as the front valance.

The cowl, inside and underneath. The complete interior floor pan and transmission tunnel, and inside both rocker panels. The complete hatch area including the tail light panel except for the spare tire well. Inside both doors, inside both rear fenders, TWO gas tank exteriors, the straps for both gas tanks. Inside the hatch, literally poured about 2/3 of a quart through it.

A lot of this was done with brushes. Although the POR folks sell and recommend the "foam" ones, I found it just as cheap and actually easier to use those metal tube epoxy mixing brushes. You can get them in widths up to 1-1/2", and for most of the job this was sufficient.

For areas where it would be a major pain to brush, I used the Air Blower Syphon. That literally allowed me to fully cover inside areas I could see and blow air towards, but would have had an impossible time trying to paint AND not get it all over my body. The Cowl area, all those support beams make it impossible to get your hand in and out of there. The space between the inner sheet metal and the exterior metal for the rear fenders as well as the area just underneath the quarter windows.

An Air Blower is the attachment you use with your air compressor to release a stream of air. That stream can be used to blow dust, debris, etc. Now, the one I used had an extended nose tube, and at the end of the tube, there was an inlet connection for a vinyl hose which I then put into the POR paint. The Air stream would then vacuum (venturi) the paint up into the air stream where it would then be "atomized" or sprayed.

The biggest advantage of doing it this way was TIME and coverage. Where it had taken me about 3 to 4 hours to do the interior of the doors by thinning out the POR with their solvent and then putting it into a touch up gun, it took me about 45 minutes to do both rear fender areas, inside both rocker panels via each of the access holes, the space below both quarter windows (again via the holes), and ALL of the cowl "bucket".

The coverage was as good or better than two coats brushed on, or 3 coats of thinned spray.

Anyhow, hope this helps.

[GunnerRob]

Thanks again guys.

Did any of you use the metal preparation and/or cleaner/degreaser before using the Por-15? And can you paint over Por-15 or do you need to use their Tie-Coat primer first?

EScanlon, the air blower with the attachment definately looks like the way to go. Speed is good!

Sorry if I seem a bit anal about all the details but the designer in me begs to know all the information on this process before I get started.:classic:

[St.stephen]

YOu only need to use the tie-coat primer if you are using any other top coat other than the POR 15 topcoat.

As for the degreaser and metal prep....you bet. Once I sandblast the rusted area I then clean with the degreaser. Let that dry and then etch the metal with the prep solution and you are then ready to paint.

One thing to understand........The vehicle or "drying agent" within POR-15 is driven by moisture or humidity. That's what makes this stuff so great. The more moisture, the harder the paint gets.

don't worry about being anal with your car. As much fun as the hobby is, no-one wants to do the same car twice in this capacity. That 280 I described in my earlier post had been half a** restored 7 years ago and that is why it is in the shape that it's in. The guy that previously restored it cut many corners underneath the car just to get it done.

Post up some pics when you get a chance!

[skip260z]

Originally posted by GunnerRob

I'd like to find out how to permanently prevent rust from reoccuring in my 280z. And if that's possible.

snip...

The net/net is don't get the Z wet.

The Japanese auto companies did not give much thought to longterm preservation of their products until probably the late 80's. Their mfg/marketing model was of a 5-yr life, then recycle.

That's why they had to offer up such aggresive rust warranties, after many of us NorthEasterner's watched our Jap cars disintegrate after a winter and became furious over it.

Nissan, Honda, Subaru, 'Yota - all the same at the time.

A mid-70's - 80's Celica GT liftback is every bit as scarce in Pittsburgh as is a 1st gen Z is. Or a 79 Accord. Or an 82 Supra.