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POR Work

Ok, I have a problem. My car is a daily driver (believe it or not) and at the moment I live in central NY state- where we have long winters and use road salt to help the roads in the winter months. Basically our idiot leaders use a ratio of 3ft road salt for every 1 ft of fresh snow, so cars rust FAST here. The average life span of a car here is like 5 years- due to the body rust.

I could not locate a good shape older EEK or M-body in my area due to this problem- I had to have a car imported up from the tristate area.

Needless to say, my car has zero rust on it. I want to keep it that way! Especially since I plan on using this car for decades (may not be the same engine all that long, lol).

So I ordered up some $300 (US) in POR- enough to do: Engine bay, firewalls, trunk, suspension, trunk lid, hood lid, rockers, floor boards (tops and bottoms), bottoms of fenders, door jams, and door slims. Basically am doing 2-3 coats silver POR, 2-3 coats black POR, topcoated with high gloss black, and farther top coated with hardnose yellow on suspension and brake parts for a unique aftermarket and two-tone look.

My first step was simple. I purchased the striper made by POR. This stuff is great! Works great at removing paint, underbody coating, etc from metal. I would not use it on plastic.... dissolves most plastics (may also include fiberglass?). It works by attacking carbon chains, so it's not good for skin and life- as most life forms you'd encounter are made up mostly of biological carbon chains.... so wear chemical gloves when you work with it or it will sting pretty bad.

I striped all the paint, primer, undercoating, etc, off of the car in all the places I planed on POR'ing.

See this paper bag? It is 100% FILLED with paint flaks which I striped off of my car using the striper and a razor blade.

Here is the engine bay with the 1st coat of POR silver on. I did the strut towers, trim, etc. Lots of stuff not vissable too. Sadly I don't have any finished pics at the moment since I had to give back the digital cam I was barrowing relatively soon after I started work.

Here's the door slims being done up under the 1st coat.

Here's the door jams being done. I later went threw and did up even more then this. This specic spot is normally covered by a black plastic gaurd... but it can trap salty water in the winter and start rust, plus there is a weld seem so I made sure that was good and covered.

Here is a before picture of the underbody. As you can see, the only rust is on the outside of the brake lines, and the exhaust system (which is only under a year old, WTF? oh well, being replaced anyways).

Here are the rockers and floorboards while being done.

Here is a full coat of silver on the rockers, floorboards, brake lines, k-rails, etc. Comes on quite nice. Not a mirror smooth finish so I wouldn't use it as a paint job for the entire car, but pretty damn good for the underbody, and certainly looks better then the crap which was OEMly used down here.

Here's the rear axle all done up.

I basically continued from here, then applied a 2nd coat, then 2 coats of black, then the highgloss black.

Before I applied the coats of black POR, I went over with POR patch and filled in all the weld seems, dings, etc so everything is smooth.

One thing I tried (only on my rockers) was to spry a supersaturated salt in water solution on the bare metal rockers after sandng them to promote surface rust since POR bonds best to surface rust. Let it set like that soaked for a few days. Didn't seem to work much better then just painting it like POR instructs, so I wouldn't advice it (was an interesting idea at least). And of course, I cleaned everything and used POR metal ready before I actually painted with POR and used metal ready on the POR inbetween coats to help itch it to make the POR stick to its self. Worked great.

Will see how the car looks after this winter (out door storage) and I think I am ready to say I would advise POR and its products as it looks like they work as advertised and definatly worth every cent if you can afford it and follow their instructions to the letter.

I plan on (but have not yet) going and using the hardnose yellow to cover the brake/fuel lines, krails, suspension& frame pieces, axles, etc.

UPDATE!

I have gone and used this car now, with the POR for 2 winters,

I got some mixed results. Some spots, the POR worked absolutely wonderful- pics below on this page. Some spots, mainly the rocker pannels- the POR has peeled off and has exposed bare metal.

I talked to the POR guys and they think a contaimination issue is at fault, so I am getting a new 6 pack of POR15 and will try these trouble spots again.

Here are the POR'd door jams 2 yrs later. Some dirt on it but you can see it came out perfectly and almost looks OEM since the black is close enough to the OEM color of my car.

Here are the POR'd door trim 2 yrs later. Slightly messy but it worked perfectly. No rust, no scratches- just protected metal.

Here are the POR'd trunk areas (all that black). As you can tell, I noticed this spot is usually very dirt covered, and is a often exposed to water. Thus I used POR to protect the metal. As you can see, the dirt can sit there but it wont do any harm (yeah, I do wash it but didnt for these pics).

Here are the rockers- the side and under area of the rockers have had a contamination issue and have peeled down to bare metal. Looks like the black peeled off of the silver then the silver peeled off of the metal.

I am going to try the rocker areas again and see if I cant get this spot right yet.

My car now offically has its first rust spot! The rear bottom fender/quart pannel area has started to rust, dunno why. The rest of the car is rust free, must have had a scratch which when exposed to JUST 2 central NY winters, turned into this.

I plan to fix this before I use the car in the rain or wnter again.

So now I went and redid the messed up POR places (rockers, etc) and repaired my first rust spot.

First thing I did was remove the black trim, fake chrome vynil trim and attacked the rusty areas with sand paper. This is what I found. While I was at it I decided to check behind all the trim, the rest of the fenders were rust free, however the rear wheel well trim both had some very small spots starting which I also treated.

I also discovered that the rear drum brakes were in need of replacement, which was the project after all this body work (ended up having a shop do the brake work).

I then sanded down to bare metal where the POR was peeling, and applied two fresh coats of POR15 silver.

I then applied a coat of POR15 black, and top coated it with gloss black POR top-coat. It came out great, this picture doesn't do it justice since I took it at night. Basically I spent a couple hours of prep, then did one side in one day and the other side the next day.

Here is my troubled spot, when all finished. My paint did drip a lil (you can see it in the pic), however from a POR perspective it is done and protected.

I then moved on to more body work (not related to POR) and made this fender look new again- but thats a whole other topic.