[fbrown]

Looks like you are getting through it- lots of work involved! (I am glad I didn't have to pay the guys at the shop to go through all that.) Keep it up!

Paying a shop to do this could become very expensive in a hurry.

A few things to consider. There are shops specializing in trunk lid restoration, the article I read showed a shop doing a similar repair to a Mopar trunk lid, I think the repair came to $1200 dollars. While I don't remember what model was being repaired it was one of the less common models like maybe a Duster, where repair or finding a good core is your only option.

A shop will media blast the lid. This will greatly reduce the time to remove the rust. A shop will probably send the lid out for blasting and get it back a day later. I don't have the option of blasting so I use Naval Jelly, while this is effective, it is very slow.

If you are planning to do this at home it will be very time consuming. For those of you with families it may take you several months of nights/weekends to complete the repair. I generally have 4 days per week to work on this, so I can spend time more time than most of you have. I'm not married or have a family so I don't have a lot of things competing for my time.


Now on to progress pictures.


And the before picture. As you can see it has come a long way.


The edge which was heavily rusted is cleaning up.


The area near the lock cylinder is getting better, but not good enough.


On to more rust treatments.


All I'm trying to say is to carefully consider if repair makes sense. Restorations take long enough without getting bogged down repairing something that should be replaced.

[fbrown]

This afternoon's effort yielded this:

Metal so shiny you can see clouds reflected in the trunk lid.


OK I dragged it under a tree so you can get a better look.


The area where the lids folds over the frame still needs a little work. The rust is totally removed along parts of the edge.


The area where the lid bends down to the bumper still needs some work.

[fbrown]

The skin is nearly done, only a couple of small areas near the bottom corner that need more rust treatment. I didn't bother with the bottom edge since I will be cutting this out and replacing it.



Only a small amount of rust remains in each bottom corner.




Now on to working on the trunk lid frame.

[fbrown]

This is the result of one Naval Jelly treatment, DA sanding and wire brushing. Some of the rust has come off but there is a lot more to be removed. Because of the sloped surfaces it may take a few more treatments to get the rust from the sloped area. I will be lucky if I can get all the rust out by Thursday.

[fbrown]

I don't know if this is getting too boring with the rust removal pictures, I'll keep them coming if anyone is interested.

I did complete the de-rusting of the skin today The lower corners were the problem areas.



Overall shot of the skin, the yellow was caused by the flash, the stool in the background has white letters but they also appear yellow.




As I expected the frame is slow going. I'm making progress but it sure is slow.

Most of the rust is out but there is still a lot to come out. Some of the pits are deep.


This is a overall view, I called it a night before DA'ing and wire wheeling the entire surface. Every treatment of Naval Jelly dissolves some of the rust and weakens the bond of the rust in the pits. It then requires a session of DA'ing and wire wheeling to get the loosened rust out of the pits to prepare for the next treatment of Naval Jelly.


In cleaning the parts of my vent frames I decided that the vent window chrome was not good enough. It's not that it's all that bad, it's just not great. So I ordered re-chromed frames today.

From 6 feet away you probably couldn't see the defects, but after all the time and money I have in the project I don't want any flaws. If you look closely you can see some pitting where the frame over hangs the desk.

[2cdavis3]

hey fbrown, I think you should of bought stock in Naval Jelly before you started this project lol. but cant speak for everyone but I'm enjoying this thread keep posting pics so i have references when i start mine

[fbrown]

I think you should of bought stock in Naval Jelly before you started this project lol

So far I have used 5 bottles of Naval Jelly on the trunk lid. I also used some left over liquid phosphoric for one treatment of the outer skin. The liquid doesn't work so well since it runs off. I have only one bottle of NJ left and I'm not sure that will be enough. I'm having trouble finding NJ now, it seemed everybody sold it a year ago, now I can only find it at Home Depot and they don't sell the larger bottles.

I have also used about $30 worth of wire wheel brushes. I generally get them from Northern tool for $1.49 or $1.99 depending on the size. However Northern Tool is out of stock, so I end up buying the same made in China brush from Home Depot, but packaged in a plastic card pack for $3.87. I have also used around $25 worth of DA sanding pads and 3" reloc disc pads. This is not even cheap when you do it yourself!

Here is the bracing with full cleaning. It's actually looks a little better than I thought it did last night when I called it a night.


Now for some close ups of various areas. I don't know what flash is picking up to create the yellow reflection, the metal is not yellow. In this closeup you can see most of the rust has been removed but there is still a few pits with black.


A shot showing the front part of the bracing, this is looking pretty good.


The lip that the skin folds over is clear of rust for about half of the edge.


Some parts still have a lot of rust remaining.


This corner is mostly clear of rust, only a small amount of black specs left.


And of course painting it will Naval Jelly again. I have quit coating some of the areas that are clear of rust. Some of the problem areas may require another 3 or 4 treatments.


I'm probably going to take a break from the rust treatment and work on something else for a day or two, this rust removal gets old in a hurry.