New body or repair the old one?
Skylerm727
Jeeper
My steel tub is repairable with considerable labor and materials, it would be cheaper in the short run to repair, but I'm concerned it will just rust out again and I will be right where I am now in less than 5 yrs? Any preferred methods to get long life from the steel bodies?[/QUOTE]
iI work on boats on the west coast of fl and have done a lot of rust chipping and repair i might not be the best at it but i found a method that worked for me on my CJ7 tub...it may get a little pricey but...in my opinion and from what i have seen this stuff do it is absolutely effective. chip grind and cut rust as good as you possibly can. invest in a chemical called OSPHO you will want a larger bottle (1 gal i believe) so that is probably gonna run you about $50. put it in a spray bottle and coat wait 24 hours or whatever the bottle says. what it does is it turns rust to primer by literally eating it. It smells like rotten eggs but it does its job. next there is this stuff that most everyone has heard of by now it is also a rust primer or whatever POR 15 (around $30) sponge brush some of that on there. and now people might not agree with me its just my opinion but instead of bondo i used another marine product called SPLASH ZONE($50 for a quart kit i believe and upwards $200's for larger) its a 2 part mix you put on gloves mix small balls of it in your hand under water in a bowl and apply and smooth by hand let it dry and it is almost as hard as steel but sandable like bondo is. it is just in my opinion wayyyy more sturdy and covers more surface area. after all that you can bondo or rivet plates and caulk the edges or whatever you want the finish to look like but i can 99% guarantee the rust will not come back in those areas.
good luck
iI work on boats on the west coast of fl and have done a lot of rust chipping and repair i might not be the best at it but i found a method that worked for me on my CJ7 tub...it may get a little pricey but...in my opinion and from what i have seen this stuff do it is absolutely effective. chip grind and cut rust as good as you possibly can. invest in a chemical called OSPHO you will want a larger bottle (1 gal i believe) so that is probably gonna run you about $50. put it in a spray bottle and coat wait 24 hours or whatever the bottle says. what it does is it turns rust to primer by literally eating it. It smells like rotten eggs but it does its job. next there is this stuff that most everyone has heard of by now it is also a rust primer or whatever POR 15 (around $30) sponge brush some of that on there. and now people might not agree with me its just my opinion but instead of bondo i used another marine product called SPLASH ZONE($50 for a quart kit i believe and upwards $200's for larger) its a 2 part mix you put on gloves mix small balls of it in your hand under water in a bowl and apply and smooth by hand let it dry and it is almost as hard as steel but sandable like bondo is. it is just in my opinion wayyyy more sturdy and covers more surface area. after all that you can bondo or rivet plates and caulk the edges or whatever you want the finish to look like but i can 99% guarantee the rust will not come back in those areas.
good luck