Tuesday, February 21, 2012

DeLorean Rust repair complete

This turned out to be a much bigger job than I originally anticipated. Once I started searching, I found patches of rust in various spots on the frame from the very front of the frame to the very back. The most obvious places were on the gas tank closing plate and the front frame extension. In earlier posts, I showed the before and in-process images of the gas tank closing plate.

After taking a wire wheel to get the epoxy off the rusted areas, I attacked it with a flap wheel grinder to get it even cleaner. I then wiped off all the dust and then applied two coats of POR-15. The gray color matches fairly well with the original frame color, so in many places I didn't even bother to top coat it wih Krylon Smoke Gray. It only fades in UV light, so since most of the frame never sees the sun it should be fine.

Here is what the bottom of the plate looked like after my repair job:
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 The top part of the plate was where it was rusting the worst. This is what it looks like now:
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A closer look reveals the pitting that was occurring on the top side that is now painted over:
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I also bought new bolts and washers as the old ones were old and rusty. Here is the plate almost completely bolted on again:
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Here is more of the frame in the front all repaired and looking sharp:
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Here is the rear part of the frame. The rust wasn't bad here at all, except around the tow hooks:
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