Removing surface rust in hard to get areas

[rsnell]

What do you guys recommend for removing light surface rust in hard to reach areas? I am almost scared to use a sandblaster (I have a 10 gallon pressurized el-cheapo blaster) based on all of the metal warpage stuff I've read. The area that I am struggling with is the backside on trunk floor extensions (installed on the car) I have used a 3M "Paint/Rust remover" disc (looks like a magnified rigid scotchbrite pad 5" disc) that has actually worked pretty well for the areas that are easy to get to (underside of trunk floor, etc) but am now to the areas I can't get into. It would even be tight to get in there with my hand and get any significant pressure applied.

The metal is all new (not painted) and was welded in several years ago, but never protected, so it has some light surface rust on it.

My plan it to remove as much as I can, use some picklex-20 on it, and spray it with Zero Rust (underneath side of car, inside the car and possibly inside the trunk) Does this sound like a good plan?

Inside the trunk, do you guys have a preference on using ZR? I am not plannning on this being a show car and already had to do some pretty extensive repair of the inner and outer wheel wheels. It looks pretty good (compared to what it did look like), but doesn't look exactly like what the factory had. Anyways, I think ZR is pretty easy to work with and looks pretty good, but I just wanted to know if others are using it in situations where it will be "visible"

[Len]

We just finished a 68 Newport and did the inside of the trunk with Black Zero Rust then dusted spatter paint over the ZR. It looked great when finished.

[AlexeiVT]

Considering the area at hand, I myself would opt for blasting, since you already have the tools at your disposal, and guarantee a clean surface when finished.

The floor pans are typically going to be thicker, even as a repro, than something like a quarter panel...but even so, you have the rigidity built into the pan, it's probably a smaller and thicker panel, w/ some ridges in it.

But, whatever the case, whatever you blast, the keys really are to keep the pressure below 100 PSI, and just keep moving the nozzle back and forth.

I've seen plenty of admonishes against sandblasting panels, but I have to believe (based on my own experiences in successfully doing so) that any problems people experience, must directly be attributed to either using excessive pressure, or holding the blast in one area for a prolonged period of time and concentrating the heat/pressure/warpage.

Honestly (and I'll admit I'm no pro at this), but I've sandblasted plenty of sheetmetal on my '67 GM, from OEM hood skins and fenders, to repro quarters and door skins, and I've never had any reservations about doing so...just keep the pressure to a sensible level, and keep it moving.

I think the majority of horror stories than seem to be perpetuated, are when folks take their items to be "blasted" at a shop...and in order to save time, rather than tune down a machine that would happily blast of weld scale from a bridge, go ahead as agressively as possible.

Figure, if you have the tool, and are really fearful of going overboard on using it, then just start at the low end of what it will do...sure, it'll take a bit longer, but you wont risk hurting anything in the process...you can move sand at 60 PSI and it'll work, and it sure wont hurt anything.

On the otherhand, if all you have is minimal surface rust, a good wiping of something like Picklex, will yield impressive results. You can saturate a small rag, wipe it on and over the area several times, making sure nothing excessive is left to pool or puddle, and you'll likely be pretty pleased with the substrate left behind. On small degrees of rust, it'll basically dissolve and wipe away anything suspect.

Good luck!