It's the classic roller coaster ride of emotion. First comes that euphoric feeling when you finalize the deal on that car you've always dreamed about. Next comes the deep-in-your-bones dread that hits you when you realize your dream machine is really a nightmare of rusty metal.
Of course, there's a solution to every problem, but the solution might cost big money. Sheetmetal can be replaced, but once you discover the price for new stampings combined with the cost of labor, the numbers can quickly add up to more than the original cost of the car. Worse still, there are plenty of cases where replacement sheetmetal doesn't yet exist. The AMC and Cougar guys know all about this. Then you're forced to find either used parts that aren't much better than what you have or N.O.S. stuff that might as well be stamped out of pure gold.
It's these realities that drive the musclecar replacement-sheetmetal business, but even it can't please everyone all the time. We ran across a situation in which we had to repair a rusty lower rear window channel in a '65 El Camino. Because of looming deadlines and a need to get the job done quickly, it wasn't possible to have the sheetmetal cut out and replaced. That's when we heard about a company called Rustbusters from friends who had previously used the process with success.
This story will give you all the details about our positive experience. The entire process-sandblasting the rusted area, applying the zinc metal spray, and filing down the area so we could install the rear window-took four hours. Our local Rustbuster representative, Richard Duenes, charged us $240, or roughly $60 per hour, and with a couple more hours of work, we had our rear window area repaired and the rear window back home where it belonged.
This metal-spray process is certainly not new, but it does offer a quick and relatively inexpensive alternative to expensive surgery, especially for components that may not be easily replaced. For example, rare bumpers, unique sheetmetal panels, or even small, cast potmetal pieces can be repaired relatively inexpensively. The only limitation is your own imagination.
Rust at the Window
You may remember the '65 El Camino buildup that appeared in the Jan. '07 issue ("Take the Ultimate Road Trip"). Because we had very little time to get the car running, the rusty rear window channel needed to be repaired in a hurry. This turned out to be the only major rust in the whole car, which was a plus, but the repair looked daunting. We called several body shops, and they wanted between $1,200 and $1,500 for the entire job, plus the cost of the panel. Even worse, it would have required a minimum of two to three days. After we arrived at Duenes' shop and he started sandblasting, we realized that both vertical sides of the window channel were also heavily rusted. This would have drastically increased the cost of the regular sheetmetal repair because it would have required hand-fabricating two sections of window channel and escalated the labor charge up toward $2,000. Right from the beginning, our choice to go with the Rustbuster process had put us way ahead of the game.
This is a close-up of the first-pass zinc spray. Zinc melts at a relatively low temperature, so the work surface rarely gets above 100 to 125 degrees F. Thin layers like this cool very quickly, allowing Duenes to apply short lengths of metal plumber's tape (for connecting large ducts) underneath the parent metal to act as a base for covering the larger holes.
How It Works
The Rustbuster process is a fairly simple procedure created specifically to apply zinc in layers. The machine employs a plasma arc using a combination of current flow and compressed air to create sufficient heat to melt the zinc. The compressed air then shoots the molten metal onto the work surface. It's really just that simple. The sprayed metal is 93 percent pure zinc and can work as an anticorrosion galvanizing process in addition to building up corroded sheetmetal. Duenes used a large-capacity, two-stage air compressor for both the sandblasting and metal spraying.
Busting Rust Nationwide
Rustbusters' Web site has a list of all its locations throughout the country. We counted 37 different outlets in 20 states, with most of the companies located in the rust-belt states in the upper Midwest plus Florida and California. Check out the Web site to find the nearest Rustbuster facility.
