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Hope everyone is safe and healthy. I have a 99 FRC that has (as you will see) a water leaking issue. This post is more to deal with the cleanup of the issues the water left behind. First up is rust.
Passenger front:
Yes, dark spot is water that was still there after yanking the carpet.
Driver's side:
Bulkhead on passenger side, driver side is similar:
I'm guessing that I should grind that rust back, prime then paint. Pardon my ignorance, but is there anything different about these C5s in terms of grinding off that rust? Meaning, can I use a small wheel to grind that rust? Or will the sparks melt stuff, cause all kind of havoc?
The carpets' backing are stained in such a way as too look like they've rusted too. Are they shot? Or should I not worry about it as no one will see that side of the carpet when I put it back? Thanks.
Last edited by jfslater98; May 23, 2020 at 04:45 PM.
I would wire brush (powered) the rust off as best as possible and coat with a product like Rust Bullet. I have used this stuff on a couple restorations and it does a phenomenal job. If you just prime and paint, my experience says the rust will be back. Good luck!
You want to make sure the you remove the minimum amount of material to remove the rust . Most of the rust in your photos looks like id could be removed with various scotch brite pads by hand and that would be my approach> a little elbow grease and a scotch brite pad will go a long way in your rust clean-up.
Although this data is for a 97 to 98, this data will work for your car and it provides the info needed for reapplying the surface protection to the area that your are removing the rust. Just thumb through the manual to get to your relevant sections.
Rust control in seams> We use this product in the Aerospace industry called ACF-50 Anti-Corrosion Formula and I use it on my Vette as part of my corrosion control efforts. There is a lot of info on the interwebs about this product so just do a search. Once you get all the external surfaces cleaned up, spray the ACF-50 is the areas you can’t get to such as the seams where two sections of metal meet/join.
Wire brush, rust treatment, paint.
I had water leak in my Z06 caused by the weatherstrip around the side windows not sealing. You'll want to make sure you fix the source of your leak first before you put your interior back together
I removed my carpets and washed them with a carpet cleaner machine and they came out OK, I let them dry a couple days and give them the sniff test before reinstalling.
Thanks for the tips everyone! Will start gathering materials. The rear carpet has been out since yesterday, in the sun, and still isn't dry yet!
One more question, for now: in the right rear there appears to be a hole of some sort. It almost looks like the factory didn't finish the job there. Not sure what happened. It's the bird nest looking stuff to the right of the rust bolts. Any guesses?
Thanks to everyone for the tips, especially goose. Turns out I have a can of ACF-50 in the garage, not sure what project that was from, so that's good for those "ribs" on the bulkhead and the area between the metal on the floor and the transmission tunnel. The wire wheel worked great until I nipped a cable a little on the passenger side. Didn't cut through the wire but did burn off insulation. Wrapped it back up and went to the scotch brite pads.
I guess I don't need to get down to bare metal, just knock off the thick parts of corrosion?
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Interior - treating rust and other questions
