Hi, my son's enjoying the 97 Prelude he bought last week! The issue I'm asking about today is rust. The body is mostly perfect, but on the nose and hood there are a few dozen tiny rust "freckles". They are all the size of the hole in the letter "o" in this font or smaller.

What I was thinking of doing to fix them: Use my dremel tool and a tiny sanding tip to grind away just the rust & a VERY small bit of surrounding paint to get to clean metal without actually marking the metal. Then I was going to use the tip of a paper clip to dot in some primer and let it dry. Once it's dry I'd use the same method to put in a few coats of the Honda touch up paint.

Does this sound like a workable solution? I didn't want to strip a large area of the original good finish just to fix tiny imperfections....

Thanks!

 

Any ideas?

 

The front edge of my 2000SH hood is the same as yours with the freckles. I also have some rock chips higher up on the hood that I have already used touch up paint on that looks like crap.. I have decided to just have the entire hood refinished and install my new red JDM front emblem.

 

I was hoping to avoid a repaint. Besides the fact the paint looks pretty nice OTHER than the rust freckles, if he spends $$ for that he'll have no money to make any upgrades he'd enjoy more! I just wanted to both hide the spots some and mostly prevent rust from spreading...

 

There is a jelly that is sold at most hardware stores that removes surface rust - then just get a tube of touch up paint from your local honda dealer.

 

Not a good idea to use that jelly....

I would VERY carefully sand/Dremel the rust until you only see clean metal, then dab on some etch primer ($5-10 @ the auto parts store), then your paint. If the color is perfect it should look OK, but keep in mind it won't be flat or smooth with the rest of the hood unless you buff it down after it dries.

 

carbon fibre hood lol

 

Do you mean Naval Jelly? I've heard of it but wasn't sure how well it worked or if it would hurt the finished area around the rusty spot...

has anyone here ever tried it?

 

The only way to fix it is to sand the rust completely away, sand the area around the spot, bondo the pit, sand, wetsand, and paint.

It might be cheaper to look around for a used hood that's the same color or run down to maaco and get one of their cheapo paint jobs.

 

I've used that jelly on everything from neon signs that take a beating 60' in the air exposed to the elements to my 01 prelude bay and 94 accord exterior.

What makes it a bad idea? - not trying to argue but if there's something to know than i'm here to learn.


Yes i meant Naval jelly. As I said - i use it alot, as far as car exteriors - ALOT on my rusted accord. Never had to use it on the Prelude exterior but i have used it within the engine bay. If it's just a small rusted spot from a stone chip, I really see no harm from my experiences.

But wait to see what Hawkze has to say on the matter... I don't want to see you doing something that is potentially damaging (although i've never had an issue).

If these are not stone chips and I misunderstood - then yes you will need to sand/primer/paint those areas

 

I definitely don't want to argue either...appreciate the civility I personally would choose a lot of things before the naval jelly, though I am sure it can work out. Rust converters will convert the rust, but it is not a fix, just a band-aid, as the rust is still there as well as the affected metal, and it doesn't convert 100% of it. Plus with the jelly you have a good chance of leaving traces of unaffected jelly behind and that is definitely not a good thing to have under your paint.

Something like POR-15 or Rust Bullet is a million times better if prepped properly and is a permanent fix. Even sanding the rust off and priming/painting is better IMO....

I used to work for the National Guard rebuilding large equipment, and we always used POR15 after sandblasting heavy rusted areas (or any exposed metal we had). I've also been painting cars for 5-6 years, so these are just my opinions based on that experience.

HTH....

 

Ah, I see what you're saying.

When it comes to cars - i only use it on the rusted stone chip spots that aren't large enough to require a sanding and spray. Then use some touch up after cleaning the area. - figured that's all the OP was referring to. I should have asked before assuming *facepalm*

For anything more than that, I would take the same approach as you.

Thanks for the reply - i may have to pick up some of that POR-15, could deff use it on quite a few things around the house.

 

Haha, yeah it's awesome around the house, too. My whole kitchen is just about done in gloss black POR. Looks like glass and is rock solid

 

a rust spot the size of that letter "o" could be a inch wide under the paint