I didn't get to weld patch on today. It's taking longer than I thought to get rid of the rust on the inner brace. I'm using naval jelly and it can take a while. Forget about the 5-30 minute time on the label, heavy rust pits will take many hours, then you need to clean it off with water, go over it with a wire brush and then apply another coating. It will take several treatments. So far I have applied Naval Jelly 3 times to the brace.
Important note - The gray coating that forms is zinc phosphate. If you are going to use an epoxy primer, this coating must be completely removed. Epoxy will peel off in sheets in a few weeks if you don't remove the since phosphate. One way remove the coating is to go over the metal with a wire brush until it shines.
I got most of the rust out of the pits but not all.
I will apply another treatment and let it sit overnight.
Cover your work with plastic to keep the naval jelly from drying.
I am ready to weld the patch as soon as the rust of the brace is treated.
I had to rework the shape here, it didn't match very well. I'm doing this much too often and have gotten very good at it, the first it took me about a hour to get the shape right. I may have spent 2 minutes this time.
In between rust treatment sessions I started joining the broken pieces of my dash panel. This is a first pass on solvent welding the parts together. I still have a bit of work left.
