Small rust spot on roof! How to fix?

[kenratboy]

I was looking at my car and there is a tiny (1 X 2mm) piece of paint missing, and there is a bit of rust inside of it!

How should I fix this? Can I smmply paint over it, or do I need to do more?

Also, there is some paint missing on my hood from gravel/rock chips, but those just need some touchup paint, as they are VERY narrow and have no rust.

Thanks!

[jhbhatia]

I'd use diet coke to get the rust off..and then let it dry nicely and just use a touch up paint...Good luck...

[kenratboy]

Serious, diet coke?

[lilsmurf]

if you want to do it right it will be more work than you think. When dealing with rust the area has to be sanded down till the rust is gone the the area has to be filled in to be level and the whole area (the whole roof) repainted. The whole roof has to be painted because there are no body lines to stop at so clear coat overlay is not seen. OR, you can do a quick fix and paint on it like you said but that wont make the rust go away.

[jhbhatia]

Originally posted by kenratboy
Serious, diet coke?

Diet coke and small scrubbing till the surface rust is off...for inner rust, you woud have to sand it down....but not all small rust spots lead to big spots (you just got to do this regularly..so that it doesn't become a big problem).

[mauibuilt59]

haha yeah, either coke or the carbonation or something has some abrasive power to it. I think it might be some of the acids or something, but i still wouldnt use it on my paint (maybe its psychological or whatever). You could probably just polish off the rust. Thats what I did to a little rust spot i found. If you look around in the auto section, there are some polishes that claim to remove minor rust spots.

[Camryamnesty]

Yah guys, coke, jsut think about it, it eats away like battery stuff... forgot the word.... But if it can do that... just think of what it does to you throat and stomach when u drink it...

[amerikim]

either paint or wax over. Remove rust first. If you wax then want to paint later, use alcohol first before paint. Rubbing alcohol on chip/scratch - not a couple of cocktails in your belly.

[SmokingTires]

Originally posted by amerikim
either paint or wax over. Remove rust first. If you wax then want to paint later, use alcohol first before paint. Rubbing alcohol on chip/scratch - not a couple of cocktails in your belly.

Never just pain over it! The rust will come right through.

It depends on that you want. Do you want it to look better? or do you want it to look like new?

To just look better, get some sand paper (make sure it is not wood sand paper) and work the area till it is rust free. Then just use some touch-up paint on the area.

If you want it to look new, you're asking for a lot of work. You'll need to sand off the rust, then wet sand the whole area with low grit sand paper. You'll have to do it in steps. After that you'll have to touch up the area. Light sand, and then polish the shit out of it. And not just wasx it, you have to go through a whole polishing process. They sell kits to do it. It's a days worth of work.

[Iris_705]

I've had similar problems with small areas of surface rust. I used a grinding stone bit with a dremmel; I've also used a drill before. I used this instead of sandpaper cause it's a lot easier to sand a specific area. Then I primed it, then I used the touch up paint. If you only use touch up paint the rust will come back through a lot quicker. For the primer, i used a spray can and sprayed on a piece of cardboard, then used a toothpick to apply it to the small areas. For the touch up paint, you should be able to get a small brush/stick colour matched. It lasted about two years before I had to do it again. It's a qucik fix that'll do. It definitely won't look like new though.

[Fever]

There's is a neat litle tool I got from Crappy Tire that was kinda pen shaped and had glass fibres coming out the tip. Works pretty good for cleaning up the rust before nail polish style touch up paint.

Gene