Rust treatment products from Auto Tech

I picked up a pair of products for treating rust and bare steel that have worked well for me. They are both made by Auto Tech and are designed to work together. The first is a degreaser, and the second is a converter.

The degreaser is called 1001 MPC. It is water-based and highly concentrated, so much so that if I do not wear rubber gloves my hands feel dried out afterward. It is a good all-around degreaser and can be diluted to match the job. For rust work the issue is to get down to clean steel. No oils, greases, waxes, or similar residue which could disrupt adhesion of new paint. The thing to do is to wash the area to be worked on prior to sanding, grinding, etc. to prevent contamination of the underlying layers.

The second product is called Rust-Prep. It goes on straight, so I purchased a gallon of it. It is a thin, watery liquid, which I apply with a brush. Rust-Prep does two things. It reacts with any existing rust to block further oxidation, and it leaves a thin zinc coating which also protects clean, bare steel. This coating is not very sturdy and is really intended to stand-in for paint until such time as the piece being worked on is ready for paint. The manufacturer recommends painting with a primer/sealer within 24 hours, but I have left pieces sitting indoors in the shop for a week that look fine. I just hate to paint one Sunday and grind it off the next.

I got my Auto Tech products at Pac Pro, 523 Mokauea St. in Kalihi. They have a lot of other lines as well, so stop by and check them out.

Here is pic of the nose area around the badge location. The rusty area on the left cuts through the badge area at an angle. To the right is a silver area. That is bare metal treated with Rust-Prep. There is still some of the blue paint, bondo, and promer here and there.