It was a beautiful day here in the Pacific NorthWest on Sunday. The kids were playing in the street, lawn mowers were humming and I was trying to find something on Hapy that I could putter on while really just enjoying the weather. Now, I could have opened the garage door and started the process of tracing circuits and plugging things in on the new engine. That would have been too productive, though. Clean the garage? Reorganize the shop area? Nah... How about tearing out the front carpets in the bus? Well, that sounds like making more work for myself later, so... lets do it!
The "original-to-me" carpet was attached to the floor with sheet metal screws. "Interesting idea," I sarcastically thought. The carpet itself was a striped orange/brown indoor-outdoor carpet, so even finding the rusted heads wasn't easy. Once located, it was clear the most of them has rusted in place. A hammer and chisel quickly took care of that, and the carpet was no longer attached. Under the carpet was the original rubber mat. It looked a little worn along the edges, but otherwise, it looks serviceable. I'll be reusing it. Under the mat, though, was clear evidence of neglect: rust, and it looked like lots of it.
I'll post the pictures I took with my cell phone later, but for now, lets just say that there was a nice dusty pile of rust under the rubber mat. A few minutes with a dust-buster, and then a dust broom, made me feel much better. It didn't look nearly as bad. After wire brushing the rust to get the loose stuff up, I cleaned it with some soapy water, and dried it with paper towels. The "wire brushing" was just hand-scrubbing a handled wire brush, not some power tool, by the way.
There's a commonly available substance called Naval Jelly that's great for getting rid of rust. No, it is not the distant cousin of Toe Jam, it actually eats the rust. I blobbed a lot of Naval Jelly onto the rusted sections of floor and spread it around with a paper towel. it was about this time that the kids wanted to shoot some baskets, so I spent the 20 minute waiting period showing off my dunking prowess on a 7.5ft basketball hoop. Yeah, I got the mad hops. hehehe...
I kinda lost track of time, but fortunately, one of the neighborhood kids discovered the garden hose and started spraying everyone. That's when I remembered the Naval Jelly cooking my rust. I took control of the hose and turned it onto the inside of the bus. The incredulous looks on the faces of the kids when I started blasting the water into the bus was truly priceless. It did, however, get the Naval Jelly off the floor. After squeegie-ing the water out, I dried the floor a second time with paper towels. In the pictures, you can see the places where the rust was completely consumed - its a dull grey.
Once the floor was completely dry, I poured Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator onto the treated areas. Rust Encapsulator converts the rust into an inert chemical, seals the rust away from air/water and serves as a thin primer. After 24 hours, it can be painted with any automotive paint without concern. I spread the paint around with a piece of cardboard. Yeah, I could have bought a case of disposable brushes from Harbor Freight, but the finish didn't need to be pretty, and I just wanted the product in contact with the right areas. When I was done, the strip of cardboard can still be recycled. I left the crank-out windows open and the poptop up over night while the paint dried.
I was lucky. The floor had been ignored my all of the previous owners and yet I didn't have any rust-through. In fact, the rust was mostly cosmetic, and wasn't really very deep. The pictures look worse than it really was. I need to paint over the Encapsulator with something to protect it. The Encapsulator scratches easily, and shouldn't be used as a topcoat. I have lots of different cheap rattlecan paints, and I'll probably pick one at random. Ultimately, those sections of floor will be covered with sound deadener, then the rubber mat and then a new carpet, so the color is pretty much insignificant. As I complete those steps on subsequent beautiful sunny days, I'll post on it.
The progress on the bus will come to a stop for a few weeks while we get some projects completed on the house. As I get tiny windows of time, though, I'll be completing some of the camping interior install from 2 years ago that were left unfinished, and reassembling the front floor. Camping season is about a month away, so I have to maximize what little time I have.
until next time...
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