POR-15 to kill rust, then Fluid film process questions...

So it seems POR-15 is the rust neutralizer of choice to save your frame (or 3 years and a trade in...) followed by fluid film. However, if I have this right you must rinse the POR-15 with water before treating with another product; but, doesn't that defeat the purpose? Water expedites the oxidation process (rust), so why? Doesn't make sense. Can you put the fluid film over the un rinsed POR-15? Does POR-15 cause problems if it isn't rinsed; like, rust? I want to do this right and I think you must kill the rust then cover the bare metal-but water makes me nervous. Anyone have experience and results to post up???

Thanks in advance

Pat

 

Interesting you brought this up today.l bought some POR-15 recently and had another use in mind.Be interesting to know more about it

 

It's a solution of phosphoric acid, and the water is needed to neutralize and flush it away. Just blow the surface dry with a compressor, canned air, or a drive down the highway. Then paint it before applying Fluid Film. If you don't paint it, you're wasting your effort.

 

How bad is your frame?

POR15 gets just as many bad reviews as it does good if you search around.

Having used it before, I personally don’t think slapping it on a frame and calling it good is the right choice. My opinion is wire wheel the loose crap or if you have a compressor, buy a needle scaler to make your life easy. Get rid of all loose rust basically, then paint with your choice of black spray paint. Optionally you can use a phosphate rust converter between rust removal and paint. After you’ve let that cure for a week or so, come back and hit it with your fluid film/rust preventative coat of choice.

POR15 will make you feel good inside because it looks good. But it has a habit of peeling off if the prep wasn’t quite right or other whatever else.

I’ve used it on a set of wheels and it worked great. But it isn’t my choice for frame work.

 

Rust is not a living organism so you can’t kill it.

You need to remove rust. You can’t spray a chemical on a surface and it removes all the rust. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.

 

I've used this with great success

$22 RUST BULLET - Metal Blast Rust Remover - Rust Treatment, Metal Cleaner and Conditioner - Removes Rust, Grease, and Contaminates For a Superior Bond - 24 oz Spray

https://www.amazon.com/Rust-Bullet-...ver/dp/B0011YY5EQ?ref_=bl_dp_s_web_3040625011
Wire wheel or wire brush, then Metal Blast, then paint

 

1) you shouldn't attempt to remove the rust when using POR 15 as it flows into the rust and this is why it is so thin when applying. The porous rust is how it adheres well to the metal.

2) on not rusty smooth areas, it doesn't stick that well, so if your frame isn't rusted then this isn't the best solution for you. for rusty frames it works very well.

 

Well.. in the bodyshop world, we use a product call Prep-All... its a hydrocarbon solvent cleaner that leaves very little residue. Yes, you can use acetone but it's a little hot or aka " evaporates fast " Water wouldn't hurt the coating but anything around, technically, can start re-oxidizing or rusting. It's really no biggie and it's something a 3M Maroon scotch brite pad can't take care of.

I put the POR 15 on some fresh welds without a top coat and minimal prep. ( acetone flood/ wipe down ) to see the coating's degradation rate and so far, I have yet to see the coating chalk or leach its pigments NOR have I seen rust break through. It's been over a year now.... The nice part of POR 15 is that it's very "oil" and tends to get into places that are hard to reach.

 

I just got around to painting some of my passenger side frame with POR15 the other day. My truck has some welded on sliders and on the passenger side, it was never treated with anything so the welded areas were rusting. So I cleaned it up with a wire brush and did the factory welds as well and painted the outer frame section. I still want to do the inner frame, but the weather is probably too cold at this point for the POR15 to cure properly so that might need to wait until next year. I've used POR15 on several cars/trucks in the past with no problems.

 

You'll be fine, POR-15 cures in the presence of humidity. It will dry faster in a garage while it rains vs. in a garage that's arid.

Don't forget - this coating isn't UV stable which means it'll chalk in direct sun light... if you want to fully seal it, i'd go with an industrial coating but beware of it's high build coating thickness.... I've used Sherwin Williams' Sherloxane or PPG's PSX800-700 series polysiloxane coating...

 

Master Series is another similar coating worth looking into. I used this on my last first gen with good success