Prep work

[3 blue Merks]

Ok the Merks is getting painted and I am gathering all possible resourses before I start on the job because I want to do it myself. Most importantly because it will be cheaper and secondly because it will be a great learning experience.
First I will ask about rust removal. It doesn't have a lot of body rust, it is all hidden on the underside. But what I do have is surface rust on the bottoms of the rear quarter panels behind the wheels and on the bottoms of the doors on the inside. I have sanded them down before and used some fiberglass bondo to fill it up and it still holds but the spots that I didn't fill have rust coming through the paint again. I have a sandblaster which I will definitely use next time to remove the rust. Is there any stuff out there that prevents oxidation of the paint though? I just need something until I put the primer on.
Another question is this, I want to get rid of plastic moldings running along the sides of the car and I think they attach to the doors with plastic clips. Now ones I pop them off I am sure there will be holes. What is the best way to fill those? I don't have access to a welder so that is pretty much out of the question. Is there any strong adhesive out there that will bond 2 metals so I can just attach pieces of metal to the inside of the doors and fill the gaps on the outside?
Next question is this, I want to remove my vynil top just because I hate the look. There is nothing wrong with it, no cracks or anything, it is still nice and soft. Ones I remove it will the metal underneath be on the same level as the rest of the roof or will I need to apply filler to the whole part of the roof that have vynil on it?

[Grand Marquis GT]

From my exprience, the roof under the vinyl is some nasty glue shit that is a bitch to remove, but will come off with enough sandpaper, lol...

You should see thet theres a little very poorly prepped bondo covering the seams to where the roof joins the B and C pillars... Ill have to dig up a pic...

As far as killing rust, I get this shit in a can, its a type of rust converter.

[3 blue Merks]

As far as killing rust, I get this shit in a can, its a type of rust converter.

Turns it to blackish color? I've used it before, not very happy with results.

[Grand Marquis GT]

either that, or theres this shit thats like a liquid u brush on..same stuff...

you gotta make sure u wirebursh and scuff the area real good before you put that shit on too.

[3 blue Merks]

Yea used both of them, don't like them very much. I don't have like deep nasty looking rust, it's just minor stuff like you get when you scratch a car to bare metal and it rusts. Isn't there some stuff that pros use after they strip all the paint off the car to prevent it from oxidizing?

[Grand Marquis GT]

I dunno then..

Willy, what do you think?

[roadsterstang420]

For the rust, you've gotta start by sanding or grinding as much of it out as possibe. If there's any small pinholes afterwards you can fill em with fiberglass filler. For larger holes fill em with tiger hair filler or something similar. As far as those holes where the trim was, they make an epoxy system called duramix, made for gluing metal to metal. It's supposed to be as strong as welds. The applicator and the stuffs pretty expensive though. You could use tigerhair, I use long n strong, same stuff i guess... to fill the holes, but you'd have to kinda dent in the area around the hole so you had room to build up filler without coming higher than the rest of the body. remember that filler shouldnt get wet before its coated unless it says its waterproof. I've used this stuff called POR 15 to coat surface rust with success, it's about $30 a quart, but a quart goes aways. You can just brush it on.