I took advantage of the sunshine this weekend to treat my van for rust before the weather gets too cold to easily get the treatment liquid/paint to dry.

This will be the third winter that I’ve had my van.  Last year I noticed the rust got significantly worst and rust is a big bad sign (although somewhat inevitable).

Generally speaking I took the rust off entirely towards the centre of each spot, leaving a bit of rust along the paint line.  As we are about to get into colder, wetter weather I didn’t want to remove any of the existing paint.  I then applied a special treatment called Vactan which stabilises the rust and renders it inert so it no longer oxidises in contact with air.

Next year I will re-sand and pull back the paint until all the rust is gone.  I’ll then either spot spray or full re-spray the van. For now, I just want to prevent the rust getting worse.

If you have large, light areas of rust you can use a wire wool brush.  However, for me most of my patches were small and isolated so I took some 180 and 600 grade sandpaper and rubbed down all the spots.

I would like to say that the big scratch on my van is NOT something that I did!

The worst part of my rust was just under the drivers door.  Initially the section itself didn’t look to bad, but on closer inspection you could see the paint was cracked and flaky.  When you press the spots where the cracks were the paint crunched.  I took the plunge and stripped all the flaky paint off, exposing the rust that was creeping along undercover.

Looks hideous!

 

I then sanded it back and treated it.  I can tell the treatment has worked because the rust has turned black which means it has oxidised.

 

This patch will definitely need stripping back further next year, in fact I’m going to keep a very close eye on it and maybe re-sand and retreat again to make sure I convert as much of the rust as possible! (My mother just had the same section of her slightly older T4 removed and replaced due to rust!)

That’s me set, guilt free for the winter!