I'm finally doing something about my car's rust other than paying somebody else to remove it, only to have it reappear in a few years. I purchased POR-15's floor and trunk repair kit and this weekend I'm repairing the driver's side spare tire well in the trunk. I want to make sure I'm doing this correctly.

First I removed loose rust, soft metal and other debris. (I didn't grind the hard rust off down to bare metal since POR-15 can be painted directly on top of rust.) Then cleaned it several times with Marine Clean and rinsed well.

Then I saturated the area to be repaired with Metal Ready and kept it moist for about 30 minutes, then rinsed well and let dry overnight.

The next day, I coated the area with two thin coats of POR-15 silver paint, applying the second coat about three hours after applying the first coat.

With the second coat still wet, I took the Powermesh fiberglass fabric, cut it to size and covered the holes-a-plenty in the well, using more POR-15 to stick the edges of the fabric to existing metal. After a few minutes, I saturated the fabric from inside the trunk with more silver paint and let dry.

My next step is to coat the fabric from the outside of the wheel well with silver paint and try to bond the edges of the existing exterior metal to the fabric.

(Please jump in and let me know if I'm doing this incorrectly or could do it better.)

My question is exactly what should I do next?

I need to patch small holes and contour with POR-15's epoxy putty. I assume this is the next step once the silver paint is dry.

My kit came with black POR-15 paint. When should I apply this? I'm assuming this is like a "topcoat" to put on top of the silver paint and epoxy.

I plan to paint the inside of the well with factory-color paint ordered from ipd (beige paint code #201). So once I'm done with the POR-15 paint, I'll order the special POR-15 Tie-Coat primer they have just for applying a final topcoat of colored paint and apply this onto the black POR-15 paint. Once dried, I'll spray on the factory paint.

For the exterior, after applying a few coats of POR-15 black and letting that dry, I'll coat it with POR-15's Chassis Coat Black. Is this tough enough to be used as an undercoating or should I apply something else on top of the Chassis Coat?

Please let me know if I'm doing this correctly. Any advice would be very much appreciated.

My POR-15 paint can has the much-advised plastic wrap between the can and the lid so I can open it again. And I always wear gloves, breath-mask and even goggles when painting the underside while lying on my back.

The POR-15 can says its shelf life will be extended if stored in the fridge. Has anybody done this? I'll have to hide it from my wife or she'll have a cow. I was going to seal it in a large Zip-Lock bag so the milk doesn't have a POR-15 aftertaste.

Once this is done, then I'll do the passenger-side trunk spare tire well. Then the floor behind the driver seat. Then the floor behind the passenger seat. Then the hood lip. Then both wheel wells. Then the passenger rear door...

Thanks in advance!
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Mike F - 1984 244 DL - 235,000 miles - with Euro headlights and lots of gauges