This POR-15 stuff I see you guys talk about...
 

Where the hell do you get it? I've been looking around town, and can't find it, and no one knows what I'm talking about. I can find it online at their website, but that's it.

www.synlubes.com has it. Buy the small cans, the big one gets too messy. The stuff works great assuming you get any loose rust and dirt/grease off first. Get some disposable brushes and rubber gloves, throw out both at the end. Also before sealing up the can again take a piece of a plastic walmart bag and put it between the can and the lid before sealing it up, otherwise teh por 15 that got down in the lip of the can will glue itself shut. Good luck, you'll like the stuff

Now, I have some very minor wheel well rust... Do I need to grind it all out, then use the POR-15, or will that just kill it?

Once you grind it all out, there wont be anything there, so you'll need to weld in new metal, then use POR-15.

Link to the company, its great stuff and you do not have to get rid of all the rust just the loose stuff

http://por15store.com/

I would recommend you look into Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator, instead. In tests, it works better, plus you can thin it with Laquer thinner for spraying (Por-15 requires it's own $$$ thinner) and it is more UV resistant (exposed Por-15 requires a top coat of paint or primer). Cheaper and better! I've used it on several projects and could not be happier. You can get it at eastwood.com.

No, mine doesn't go all the way through... I will just leave a crevice.

grind off what you can then seal it with por15, did that in a lot of places on my project car, and its still sealed up nicely over a year later. Friends have used the eastwood stuff and they seem to like it, either one is probably fine.

Poor man's solution= get all the surface rust off that you can, then paint the area up with some muriatic acid ($5/gallon at most hardware stores). Let that sit for a bit, then rinse well with clean water. Dry the area with a propane torch to remove all moisture, then immediately spray with your typical anti-rust primer and paint.

The acid removes the rust that couldn't be ground off, and passivates the metal so that it will not be so prone to rusting again. The trick is to not let it sit around too long after the acid treatment. Fixed a couple of small areas on my car, and it hasn't come back in two years. Por-15 does a great job, but if you don't want to drop the bucks for it or can't find it then this is another viable solution. Good luck! :)

I figured I would do that acid treatment before the Por-15... I saw you had talked about it before, and it seems like a good idea. Is that a good treatment for surface rust on the underbody before I use the underbody coating?

It takes it all right down to the bare metal. If you leave a part soaking in it for too long, then it will go even farther than that.

I'm not sure how you could safely apply it to the underside of the car though. I'd hate to have that stuff drip on me, you have to be very careful with it.

wear a big arsed condom.......

Full chemical suit, with hood and fresh air supply, or put the car on a rotisserie. Vapors can be very toxic and burn the lungs, eats concrete in a 10% soulution in water. Extreme, a bit.

With proper protection, (personal and enviromental), ventilation and a charged garden hose standing by, it can be an economical option to the POR-15 and rust encapsulator.

For long term protection, use the best primer you can buy, this does not include rattle can primers bought at WalMart. Some autobody suppliers have etching primers in cans, but the best will be a 2-3 part primer applied with a spray gun. A sub $50 touch up gun will do a good enough job applying the primer and top coat on the underbody and wheelwells. Top coat should then be followed up by some type of underbody coating to protect the paint. I like the Dupli-color truck bed liner. Easy to apply, reasonably inexpensive and durable.

POR-15 is incredible stuff.

ALWAYS buy it in small cans. In fact the company has started selling the paint in cases of very small cans. The problem is that if you get any paint in the lip of the can, then close the lid, YOU WILL NOT GET THE CAN OPEN AGAIN. A trick to get around this is to lay a plastic shopping bag over the can (both layers of bag) then close the lid. That way when you go to re-open it, the plastic layers will come apart.

The closest thing I can liken it to is the special 2 minute epoxy that Permatex (I think?) sells in their gas tank repair kits. It dries HARD, adheres to anything, and is pretty much impervious to any chemical you can throw at it. As a matter of fact, the first thing I'm going to do once I get POR-15 (the only place locally that sells it is open 10 to 5 monday through friday!) is wire-brush the scale off of my fuel tank and paint it up. Solve those leaks once and for all!

It's really not that expensive, as far as paints go, either.

Only an Aussie, or Brit, would say arsed, love it. Always carry a raincoat for the cookies.

I would suggest using a rust converting product first, (plasti-coat makes a good one) let that dry and then use por15 over top.

Remember never shake POR15, always stir.


I've used several cans of POR15 and 20, and I've never had problems re-opening cans with residue on the sides.

1. question to those that have used POR-15:

i want to use it as an undercoating. what would you use to remove it if it got on places you don't want it? i'm thinking on specific parts like studs and threaded areas. i mean, i guess the logical thing would be to tape those areas off, but if it dries so hard and impervious to solvents, then how would you get the masking tape off when finished?

2. i love Muriatic acid. i use it on screws, nuts and bolts and so on. gets them really clean. i've been kind of reluctant to use it on aluminum though.

if you dilute the muriatic acid, its still active. so when you flush it out, its going to harm the enviorment is it not?

Can't you actually stop the acid in its tracks using lime?


anyone clean there radiator rust and crud build up with " CLR " ?

I just checked on the POR-15 and was surprised that you can get the starter kit for about 36.00 Not too shabby, I guess I'll have to pick some up. I'm a stickler for "do it once, do it right" so this is right up my alley... Right now I'm cleaning everything with the acid, then painting with rust proof (high zinc content) primer and a rust proof paint. Overall, the POR-15 sounds a bit easier and better over the long haul, but they don't have it in yellow. I guess I could treat with the good stuff, then overcoat with the color I want though.

It was my understanding that for best results, POR-15 should be painted over bare rusty metal.

Rust won't continue without oxygen(*) and POR-15 *cuts off* the oxygen supply. It can only do that if it's adhering directly to metal, which is probably why they recommend you apply it to bare rusty metal instead of primed metal.

* - Roommate did an interesting experiment. Took an old aquarium, filled it with very heavily salted water, then put steel and iron bits in it. Very rapidly rusted.... then the rust stopped. Stirred the water around, minor rusting then stopped. Bubbled air through the water, rust continued ferociously again... then stpped. Painfully Obvious Conclusion: Iron can't oxidize if there's no oxygen present!

you are correct peejay, it needs to go right on the rust, not on primer or rust converter etc. The only thing you need to make sure of is that any loose rust or grease is off first, other than that you just paint it on and it drys hard as a rock.

Ahh. So then I'll strip any primer or paint I have on the rust spot, put it on, and I'm good to go. Cool.

One thing I've found about any kind of paints, adhesives, and the like, is if ya read the directions and follow them to a T, the chances of success are very high.

Probably why when I paint things, it generally looks like crap. :) Well, except for the helmet I painted, but in that case I followed the directions religiously.

- Pete (why yes, I DO have that lame green-to-purple flopping color on my helmet...)

yea por 15 isn't made to go on top of anything other than rusty rough metal, it doesn't stick to painted surfaces well, and tends to flake off after a while, at least in my experience.