Hey guys. Im looking to clean some surface rust on my truck and do a rust treatment. I have one spot on the bed that has paint bubble and rust starting to form. Would it be a good idea to sand this area down and apply POR-15? I will be doing a bed liner across the bottom of the truck anyhow but I don't want to spend $500 to have a patch welded in. What are your experiances with it and whats the best way to apply it? Also is a quart enough to do most of my small areas i.e.. bottom of doors, wheel wells ect...

 

I think it will depend on how severe the rust is and how deep down into the metal it has gotten.

 

Wellll lets just say it is not a hole. Its on the driver side bed at the bottom next to the cab.

 

I hate to say it but if you put the POR 15 on that particular spot i don't think its going to help you any. My truck rusted in that same place and it is now a hole the size of a fist. The reason i doubt the POR 15 will help is because when that spot rusts it rusts from the inside out. What you cant see is how bad the cancer already is. that little spot you see may be 10 times worse than it actually looks. Mud gets trapped by the outer skin and the support bracing behind it and rusts the whole bottom corner normally before you know it. If you could somehow get behind there and truely clean everything out and coat the inside.... you might be able to save it. Just my thoughts so you don't do something and then 6 months later you cant tell you did anything.

 

I used it on my entire frame and suspension and worked great but for body rot the only way to truly stop it is new metal. Otherwise it will come right through the bedliner in no time.

 

I've tried POR15, but prefer another similar product called Chassis Saver. I've used it extensively with great results.... you just need to know the proper way to use it.

It's all about prepping the area. It's not intended to be used on clean metal, it actually says on the can that some surface rust is needed for it to be applied. This makes it ideal for anything like the frame, axle housing, floor panels, etc.

But as mentioned above, it will NOT stop rust coming from behind a body panel. It works to stop rust by cutting off it's oxygen supply... if you have bubbles on your bed, that means the rust is coming from BEHIND like farmer already said. Applying any kind of rust treatment is going to be ineffective unless you can apply it on the back side of the area also.

As far as doing the bottoms of your doors, you will be wasting your time unless you take the inside door panel off and do the inside of the door skin also... for the same reasons I talked about above.

Good luck.

 

I was hoping to get by using it on the bed. My plan is to sand the paint away and see how bad the rust is. The inside of the bed (back side of rust area) is fine. Then I was going to cut away the bad spot. Then apply POR then coat with the bed liner. Guess I might have to approach this a different way. I can't weld and don't want to pay someone else to gobble it up thats why I am on the fence here about what I should do. Any other suggestions fellas?