I thought it would be a good idea to assess the rust damage in the spare tire area prior to replacing the bolts for installation of the new tank. NOTE: This kind of "while you are at it" behaviour is never a good idea when the goal is to get the car on the road. I just could not help myself and need to constantly remind myself of the 80 LE that is sitting in bits in my garage. But, I needed a physical task to burn off some stress, so I took into it. First step is removal of the cover.
Then a closer look at what lurks beneath. It appears not too bad in this picture but there is a lot of deep rust on the "shelf" near the front, in the corners, and near the rear of the car (not in photo).
I cleaned it up a little and used low-odour "Aircraft stripper" to remove the paint. The low odour stuff does not work as well as the regular but is hopefully less toxic. Paint stripper generates a lot less dust than using a wire-wheel to take it off. A wire wheel was used for final cleanup. "Stripper" and "take it off" in the same paragraph and I can't think of anything witty to say. I must be tired!Here's why they say to put this stuff in a metal or glass container. The stripper was in this cup for about 2 minutes and no, I was not holding the cup at the time. Always do what the instructions tell you, kids! All the paint in this photo was removed before the next steps.
After stripping I cleaned the surfaces with Marine Clean, flushed with water, dried, primed with Metal Ready, flushed with water, dried, applied two coats of POR-15, all per the directions. Here it is after one coat. That's a little nicer.
I still have to paint the tank mounting hardware but that's an easy job. What's next? Going to bed! One of my Great Danes had me up most of last night because of thunder storms and I took the other one urban hiking today. I'm bushed!
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