Painting the frame

Oldsalt · Post by **Oldsalt** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 2:59 pm

Hi all,

I am beginning restoration work on my new M38A1 and have stripped it down to the frame. I'm sure that this topic has been hashed over many times, but I'm looking for opinions on the various products available for painting the frame. I've read numerous posts about POR15. Has anyone used "Rust Bullet"? I had not heard of it before beginning to research this process today. Any other products I might not have heard of?

Both of these products talk about just painting over the rust. My frame has no structural rust but the surface rust is fairly heavy, and I plan on blasting it clean so I'm curious if they will still work well with this kind of preparation. I pressure washed the frame yesterday and what paint there was on it pretty much blew away.

I know Powder coating is perhaps best, but I don't have a powder coater around here that I trust. I've had some small stuff powder coated by a place near here and it didn't hold up. The coating cracked and peeled off, and rust came through. Bad preparation work probably, but I won't go back to him.

I had originally planned on blasting and then spraying on a self etching primer, and then coating with regular primer and then an enamel paint but I'm exploring options.

Any opinions would be appreciated. I know some of you guys have a lot of experience doing this.

brimac · Post by **brimac** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 3:46 pm

I had my frame sandblasted and epoxy primed at the shop that did
the blasting. I think you would be fine with self etching or epoxy. The guy down the street from me is into Land Rovers and his last frame was galvanized. It looked so cool he didnt paint it.
Brian

Post by **wesk** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 10:50 pm

A little food for thought gents.

Willys used no primer, chassis black satin finish covered with OD 2430. That lasted half a century. If you sand blast her clean and use good old fashion red oxide primer and 2430 OD or Chassis satin black you'll get another half a century. If you would like say 75 to 100 years instead of 50 use an epoxy primer and high gloss two part urethane finish.

Bretto · Post by **Bretto** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 6:47 am

I would never consider powder coating a frame. Sure it is tough but that is just it. It'll get compromised by a pin hole and moisture will get under it and you'll never know till it starts coming off in chunks. I imagine it would be a horrible job to remove it in order to redo down the road.
Plus that means you'd have to pay someone to do something you could be doing yourself.

major519 · Post by **major519** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 1:38 pm

If you are really a purist and want it to appear correct, get your epoxy primer in black and paint OD as a top coat. This works for MB and GPW as well, get the epoxy in red oxide colour.

Nic · Post by **Nic** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 2:50 pm

major519 wrote:If you are really a purist and want it to appear correct, get your epoxy primer in black and paint OD as a top coat. This works for MB and GPW as well, get the epoxy in red oxide colour.

Does using different primers alter the top OD coat shade a great deal?

Regards

Nic Jackson

mckim · Post by **mckim** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 4:11 pm

Nic wrote:Does using different primers alter the top OD coat shade a great deal?

It should not. If the color of the primer is affecting the topcoat, it means your topcoat coverage is inadequate.

I think what major519 meant was that since the original frames for the M38 were painted a coat of black topcoated with OD, one could mimic that with black primer. The same goes with the MB/GPW frames (which I'm assuming, based on that quote, were red oxide topcoated with OD). This shouldn't change the final appearance, but any scratches will show black below the OD instead of whatever color your primer is (grey in my case).

53a1 · Post by **53a1** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 4:20 pm

I sand blasted, wiped clean with acetone, Red Oxide (3 coats), RAPCO Flat OD MC Forest Green (4 Coats). It's been over a year and I haven't drove it too much but I've dropped tools on the frame and banged it around a little. Seems to not chip at all.

I'm not a paint guy and probably should ask me in a few years how the paint held up.

BullRun · Post by **BullRun** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 6:06 pm

There is a rust converter from I think Tractor Supply that is available in quantites large enough to provide a wash or dipping solution. I have considered using it inside hat channels and the front cross member. A portable sprayer like those used on flowers and plants would spray this stuff well into the boxed chassis areas too.

Supposedly it was developed to rustproof tanks for the army from wind driven sand abrasion. Don't know if that is true.

Claudio · Post by **Claudio** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 8:21 pm

Sorry all of you, but I would never do sandblasting, unless the frame has heavy and pitting rust. For surface rust, spend a whole weekend with sandpaper cleaning, envite your neighbours for a barbecue + beer and let them help you with the job. A primer painting with red oxid (cheap and effective) and a final 2 coat paint spraying with semi gloss 2 component poli-urethane (PU) olive 2430 will be the best you can do to your jeep. The correct PU paint semi gloss allows you in the future on removing all sort of sticky oil and grease+dust when washing the vehicle with a high pressure water cleaner.
Again, don't do sandblasting

if you have only surface rust and pay attention to the correct color patterns of your jeep, including the frame rails.
Claudio
42MB, 42WC57, 51D&KM100, 52M38, 62M170, 67M170, 69M606A3, 98Land Cruiser, 68 Understanding wife.

Oldsalt · Post by **Oldsalt** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 12:53 am

I knew when I posted this thread I'd get a lot of opinions. Interesting that everyone seems to lean away from the specialized coatings and towards regular paints.

Claudio, you don't say why you are opposed to blasting. Is it because of the health aspects? or something else? When I used to work on ships, we used a very high pressure water pressure blaster. A blaster with 5000+ psi will strip steel down to white metal just like sand blasting but with nothing but pure water. Unfortunately I don't have that kind of blaster, but I do have a water driven sand blaster which works pretty well with a more commonly available pressure washer. No dust to worry about, and no heat issues either. You do have to be prepared to get wet though.

Wes, is the 2430 OD color a federal standard color code or is it brand specific? When I enter that code into the federal standard color server, www.colorserver.net, it gives me an error. Does anyone know the current equivalent code if it is a federal code? The 24087 code I see mentioned a lot as a later OD color also gives an error, but I read somewhere that that code had been superseded by 24088 in the current version of the federal paint codes. 24088 does come up in the color server.

Post by **wesk** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:22 am

2430 is the 4 digit code introduced in the new GSA system called FS595 in 1950. It was derived from the WWII 3 digit codes. You won't find these 4 digit codes in the modern FS595A system anywhere. 24087 was superseded in the late 80's I believe. Research to date places the closest available commercial paints as Gillespie's "23070" and AJP's "Late WWII OD". The titles I have in "" marks are their company marketing names for their product and are not an official designation in any of the military/GSA standards.

24087 is the darker and more brownish and 2430 is the lighter and more greenish of the two.

Keep in mind that the 595A standard is a color appearance standard. It is not the chemical mixing guide. You will have to get into the MIL specs for the paint mix guides and they are based on 1950's ingredients most of which are no longer produced or are currently banned form use.

The MIL spec tells you what to mix together and the 595A gives you a visible guide to adjust the tint with.

major519 · Post by **major519** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 6:36 pm

Like the previous poster said, he would hear a lot of opinions...
Personally, I believe that sandblasting is the only way. Rust is like cancer. You can cover it up but its still there. Sanding metal down is fine but it doesn't get the pits out where the iron oxide is hiding. Maybe the converters work, but sandblasting also serves a second purpose. ADHESION. This is the number one goal with paint and primer.
If the primer is not well adhered it doesn't matter what king of coating you put on after nor the number of coats applied. PREPARATION is the key to all finishing jobs from bodywork to household painting.
Also, depending on the type of primer dictates the top coating procedure
Typically, most primers require time to "flash off", that is to be dry to the touch but not fully cured. This allows the carrier (solvent) to evaporate off. Sometimes, if you apply paint too early, the solvents from the primer will continue to evaprate through the paint and alter the final appearance.
This can be illustrated by using gloss paints over undried primers and ending up with a hazy or blotchy top coat, perhaps even dull or flat.
Different types of paint reducers can also affect the final product as well. Typically fast reducers, toluene, zylene etc will flash off very quickly and alter the appearance. Usually flat paints are less suseptable to these effects than high gloss paints.
When using epoxy primer, one must be aware that most require top coat within 24 hours otherwise you are required to sand them which is a real pain.
To make a long story short, on your Jeep, use some plain old enamel type red or black oxide primer and top it off with your choice of paint. Personally I really like the GCI (Gillespie Coatings) paints. If you want a little more longevity go with the epoxy primer and top coat with the same GCI paints. Follow the manufacturers instructions and you won't go wrong.

53a1 · Post by **53a1** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:54 pm

I guess it depends what you are starting with. If the part looks like the original paint is strong and hard to remove, sometimes I just smooth it out and paint. If it has large sections of rust in hidden areas (like my frame) with lots of nooks and crannies sand blasting is the best solution.

I guess you could use sand paper but why? You will never get the rust out of the crevices, nooks and crannies.

I am a strong believer that you need to get 99% of the rust off for the phosphoric acid or other rust converters to work otherwise you have only converted a top layer of the rust and your paint will fall off. (These products don't penetrate as deep as you think)

If I have small parts, nuts, bolt, I blast them in my home cabinet, phospho, prime, paint. The adhesion is excellent if you follow these simple steps.

Oldsalt · Post by **Oldsalt** » Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:32 pm

Thanks Wes, Last time I painted my M-38, before I knew about websites like this, I borrowed a federal standard 595C paint fan from the Sherwin Williams store and picked a paint color. By luck it was the right OD color, 24087 or acutally the modern equivalent 24088. They were able to mix me some paint by looking up the specs for that color. Thats why I was wondering what the modern equivalent color code is for the 2430 OD.

Someday I am going to strip that jeep down and give it a proper paint job. I just painted over the old paint last time. I have no idea how many layers of paint are on that jeep. I've put a couple on it myself over the last 39 years and it had a few before I got it.