Hey all, just thought that I would do a quick write up on my experience with Rust Bullet anti rust coating. Feel free to go straight to the conclusion at the end if you don’t like reading all these stupid words.
The suspension on my 1986 GT was in a pretty rough shape. I’ll describe the entire rebuild in another thread when I’m done with it, but in addition to the performance it had (or didn’t have), it also looked like crap. Nothing makes a car look better than a new coat of paint, so that’s what I did. I wanted something that would keep the rust at bay that had started to form on some of the components, AND something that would look good. I didn’t want it black either. I’ve never understood why people try to hide all that stuff by painting it black…let it be seen!
There are a couple of options for underbody paint (POR-15, Rust Encapsulator, and Rust Bullet) I finally decided on Rust Bullet. It’s UV stable, so it requires no topcoat and won’t ever change colors or degrade on me. One of it’s selling points is that it requires minimal prep work. No sanding is necessary, and no “excessive” cleaning. It needs to be free of loose rust, dirt, and oil, but otherwise you don’t need to be a perfectionist (at least, that’s what they claim). Plus, it’s default color is “metallic gray”, which sounds like silver to me. I bought mine for $40.90 shipped from summit racing (1 pint).
Rust Bullet can be had in 2 versions, Standard (gold can) and Automotive (silver can). They are basically the same, but the automotive is has more metallic particles and is thinner so it can be sprayed through an HVLP spray gun if you wish (so they say). It also flows out better if you plan to brush it on, so it shows less brush strokes. I have the Automotive version, and I chose to spray mine with my cheapo HVLP gun from harbor freight, which has sprayed about 5 motorcycles now and always does great.
First, I removed all the suspension components, and hit everything with a steel wire wheel on the end of a drill. Next, I washed everything in gasoline to remove the grease and oil that the wire brush just smeared around. Finally, I wiped down everything in Xylene, and hung everything from a makeshift saw horse that I build using scrap wood from when I tore down my last deck. Quite a piece of redneck engineering.
Here it is after the first coat. It looks great, but it did NOT flow through the HVLP gun for crap. It spit and sputtered like a spray paint can when it’s almost run out. Any idea how hard it is to make a smooth coat with a spray gun that is inconsistent? It’s impossible. It’s like trying to write with an ink pen that skips. You keep going over and over the same spot, but it never comes out right. The good news is, that the Rust Bullet coating never ran, no matter how heavily I hit a spot. It was really amazing actually.
The parts looks great. Unfortunately, I was only able to give it 1 coat, and the instructions specifically say it needs 2. Since my gun kept skipping, I had to make it super heavy in some spots just so it would cover everything. My hope is that one super heavy coat is almost as good as 2 lighter coats, but I guess we’ll see.
Finally, with what little paint I had left, I went back with a foam brush and hit any spots that I missed. You can sort of see the finish difference between the brush strokes and the spray pattern, but it’s slight.
Conclusion: If I had to do it over again, I think I would brush this stuff on….not spray it. Although the spray worked out great in the end, and the finish looks awesome, it was infuriating to try to make that stuff flow through my gun. I also wasted a lot of paint because of how inconsistent my spray pattern was. If you were going to do this same project, I would recommend you get a quart, not a pint. If you brushed it on you might get 2 coats out of a pint, but I doubt it. I’d rather have too much than not enough, and this time I didn’t have enough.
As for the protection it offers, I will have to let you guys know in a couple years how well it holds up to the elements. I will say that this stuff is tough. Very, very tough. I dropped one of the control arms in my garage, and it didn’t even mark the paint. Regular polyurethane definitely would have chipped or scratched. Also, I’m still wearing Rust Bullet on my wrists where my gloves didn’t cover. Normal Polyurethane paint will wear off of me in 3 days or so, but rust bullet is hanging on strong after a week. Not exactly a scientific test, I know, but it sort of demonstrates how well this stuff sticks.
I’m very impressed with the product itself. It adhered great, required minimal prep work, and looks good. I’m not very impressed with the guy who wrote the directions. It doesn’t flow through an HVLP gun as well as they say it will, and it doesn’t cover as much as they say it will. Overall, I’d do it again though.
