Need help on a detail I am doing tomorrow...

[Shades]

This girl is a friend of mine. She has been asking me to detail her car for a while now. She has a 1994 jeep grand cherokee, dark blue. The vehicle has probably never been detailed. She claims there are a few small rust spots on the hood. She says they are very small. What do you recommend I do about the rust spots? I am planning to clay, polish, swirl removal, wax...Sound good? Also, her passenger side mirror fell off 3 months ago and she hasn`t bothered to remove it so you have a nice chunk of plastic rubbing against your paint every bump! I don`t know how severe it is but I`ll probably have to bring out the old rotary for that one assuming there is any paint there! Anyways pictures coming tomorrow and if I can get some help on the rust spot issue, it would be great! Thanks!

[coupe]

Leave the rust alone, nothing you can do.

[Envious Eric]

rust = bodywork necessary

[coupe]

Sounds to me that this jeep is beyond worth detailing.

I hate doing jeeps anyways, 4" pads are a must with jeeps.

[Shades]

hmmm..well I guess i`ll just check it out before I give her a definate then. If it is really bad I`ll pass. Too bad she doesn`t have touch up paint or i could fix the rust spots with some wet sanding etc.. Oh well, i`ll keep yall updated

[Grimm]

Believe me, unless you spend the time and $$ to do it right, the rust isn`t worth the trouble. It will just come back in three months.

[Accumulator]

OK, I`ll go out on a limb and discuss half-@$$ed approaches to surface rust



It all depends on how bad it is. When I was driving my mechanic`s rusted-out Benz for a long time I kinda felt sorry for it, so I gave it a real detail and I had to do something about the rust lest it have rust streaks everywhere after the next rain.



The worst rust areas (complete perforation) responded surprisingly well to being lightly sanded and painted with Eatwood`s Rust Encapsulator (a POR-15 type product). It looked like black primer..better than crusty, streaking rust. A few months later when I gave the car back the rust was starting to spread again, but hey, it would`ve been a lot worse had I done nothing and at least while I was driving it it wasn`t "stain your clothes if you brush against it"-bad.



The less serious spots I hit with the old 3M Rust Avenger rust convertor (it`s discontinued but there are similar products). NO touch up paint or anything, I just let it dry and then waxed over it.



I`ve done similar stuff to some surface rust on my beater-Blazer (only I did a better job of it ) and it`s still fine after four months. There were a few rusted chips that I missed and much to my surprise just having polished and waxed them has helped a lot. If this is all you`re gonna do, I`d hit them by hand first lest you contaminate your pads with (abrasive) rust particles. Then just polish and wax...it`s better than nothing.



No, you can`t fix rust properly without *doing* it properly, but you can still make things better, at least temporarily.