What do you do to iron out rust pits???

[Irby G.]

What's has the best outcome to get rust pits out of stuff? My upper a-arms and diff. cross member have some pitting and I'm wanting to restore them to make them look really nice. I was about to throw a thin layer of bondo, sand paper and elbow grease at them but thought I'd better ask you guys first. What do y'all swear by?

Or should I just break down and buy new from America's Finest???

[Marco H.]

Re: What do you do to iron out rust pits???

I usually install new A-Arms unless the old ones show no pits after sandblasting. I had no good longterm luck with bondo-bodywork on undercarriage parts. It chips easily and can look worse that before.
It should be possible to find a nice differential crossmember even off a C3.
Hope this helps.
Marco

[Mike G.]

Re: What do you do to iron out rust pits???

You can do the skim coating with filler, or you can spray a catalyzed polyester filler-primer such as FeatherFill G2 or SlickSand. Sand down to bare metal, leaving material only in the pits, and you won't have chipping issues. Shoot with epoxy and then topcoat with whatever you prefer.

[Jim W.]

Re: What do you do to iron out rust pits???

POR sells an array of products designed for this use, "rust encapsulation". I believe there website has a catalog.

[Jack H.]

Re: What do you do to iron out rust pits???

Typical alternatives to filling pit on stamped and extruded steel parts that will ultimately be painted include:

(1) Use a final paint that's 'thick' and known to fill surface imperfections. Epoxy based DP-90 is one...

(2) Use a metal doped epoxy agent that will adhere and can be sanded/polished flush. One example is Lab Metal and I believe Eastwood carries it.

(3) The 'traditional' method is to clean the surface and lead it in. Although it's getting harder these days to find a good ole boy body man with lead work experience.