I'm about to start sanding/painting my engine bay but there's rust inside of a lot of my bolt holes... I don't want to paint without getting rid of it and can't really fit a wire brush in there, just wondering what people do to clean them out before paint? Thanks

 

sandblast it

 

Unfortunately I don't have access to a sandblaster...

 

then your ****ed

 

or you could run a tap through it with cutting oil.

 

this would help

 

Rust is very common in screw and nuts...The thing you need is sandpaper through which you can remove rust and then put the oil continuously everyday so that the rust may not come back...

 

sounds good, I had thought of running the bolts back in with oil but the tap makes more sense, not sure why I didn't think of that.... thanks for the input

 

Yeah use oil just make sure you get all of it off otherwise there's no point in removing the rust. I'd say f*ck it and leave, it will come back right after you paint it regardless. Really more trouble than its worth. Just my trained opinion.

 

What's this rust destroyer you speak of?? Is that the stuff that's supposed to convert rust into a paintable surface? I already bought some rustoleum primer so I'm good to go there.

 

Either way if you retap it, the paint surface will be cut and will eventually start rusting again. Not tryin to argue with you tho lol maybe I'm just misunderstanding your technique, if so PM me and tell me your exact process and I may just start using that one. Word!

 

To keep the rust from coming back, put some anti-sieze on the threads of the bolt before you install it.

 

why do you want to paint a bolt hole?.
put anti-seize on the bolt like^^^ mentioned.
LOL.

 

Thanks!

I'm painting my entire engine bay. Plus my car was stolen and stripped so I'm just going to leave a lot of stuff out of the engine bay such as a/c and other miscellaneous stuff. Instead of letting it all rust out, I"ll be painting it. Instead of welding then or leaving a bunch of bolts in the bay paint's the best thing for it.

 

Sandblasters are CHEAP. Like $25 cheap...then you just need the abrasive, a respirator and a compressor and you're set.

 

X2! Even if it breaks after a couple uses, its cheap so no big deal and as long as you accomplish what you're tryin to do then its money well spent. And to those who keep saying paint the holes then retap them, ill pay money to see you paint a bolt hole and retap it and not have rust come back, you've obviously never done any real body work, or just have no common sense what so ever.

 

now I know you have a bigger pic of your avatar

 

OHHH, I see, you did not mention that.
Anyway, I would suggest just tapping, or "chasing" the threads.
Using a sandblaster will definetly remove the rust BUT, it makes a huge mess, I'll say it again it makes a huge mess. Thats a problem because when you go to re-paint no matter how hard you try you are gonna get sand in your paint, and trust me it does not look to hot.
If you are gonna blast use a "recycler" type blaster, it has a rubber nozzle on the end that you push against the surface or over the bolt hole and it collects the media and stores it in a bag where it gets sucked up again, much cleaner.
Hope my reply helped you.