best way to preserve new metal?

[toqwik]

I am in the process of replacing trunk floors, extensions, outer wheelwells, and quarters.  What is the best way to preserve this metal to keep it from rusting in the future.  I talked to a sales rep for por15 and he said it is not recomended to be used over new metal, said to spray water on it and let it rust before applying.  Surely there is a better way.  What did you do?

[toqwik]

Also, I am not going to cut out the trunk for the rubber plugs.  Should I cut out the ones in the trunk extension where it meets the quarter near the bottom?

[Charger1973]

I talked to a sales rep for por15 and he said it is not recomended to be used over new metal, said to spray water on it and let it rust before applying.

Yeah...  apparently that guy drives a plastic car.  Who in their right mind would intentionally try and get their car to rust? 

[clausoe]

I talked to a sales rep for por15 and he said it is not recomended to be used over new metal, said to spray water on it and let it rust before applying.  Surely there is a better way.

That is like letting yourself be infected with a deadly disease just because there is some good medicine for it

If you want to protect fresh and healthy metal use good quality primer and a topcoat designed for the use.
Metal will not rust as long as it is protected from oxygen and moisture.

[Mike DC]

                     
POR-15 is pretty good stuff, but it's not worth purposely rusting an area of the car just to use it better.

Maybe just put a decent coat of black epoxy primer on the floors.  That stuff takes no prisoners.

                     

[mopar_madman]

if your parts have the black EDP coating on them you are fine, just leave it on. If its bare metal I would use a liquid metal prep on it (metal conditioner dupont 5717s or picklex are examples) to clean and etch the surface, then spray them with epoxy primer.

[bull]

Epoxy primer.

[Aussiemadonmopars]

Hey Clausoe!!! Funny you should metion that.  A guy here in Australia recently won a Nobel Peace price in the field of Medical Science for deliberately infecting himself with the bacteria that is present when you have stomach ulcer's. He proved his point that it was the bacteria that caused the ulcer's and not stress or a bad diet.
I go with Bull and say epoxy primer.

[jaak]

The reason the sales rep told you that is because por is designed to stick to an neutralize rust. Putting it on bare clean metal is pretty much useless, just wasting money/time. But I agree with you I would not deliberatly rust up a perfect panel just to use it, its designed to stop rust that has already started from spreading, pretty much for the drivers out there, not what I'd consider a resto product. I would use a good epoxy primer.

Jason

[bill440rt]

if your parts have the black EDP coating on them you are fine, just leave it on. If its bare metal I would use a liquid metal prep on it (metal conditioner dupont 5717s or picklex are examples) to clean and etch the surface, then spray them with epoxy primer.

   Etch the metal using a red Scotch Brite pad or sandpaper before using DuPont's metal conditioner. The roughed up surface will give the epoxy primer a little more to bite into. PPG's line of epoxy primer's are the best.

[austinpalibroda]

Mopar_madman has the right idea, worked at a body shop and thats pretty much what we would do.

[73chargers4404]

i was told by por-15 to use metal ready with a scuff pad ,working the metal ready as you let it soak

[bill440rt]

Metal Ready is basically POR-15's version of a metal prep. It has a mild acid to neutralize rust, and mildy etches the metal for the POR-15 coating to stick.
The DuPont metal prep is about the same or similar.

[BigBlockSam]

Epoxy primer.