Sorry about the title to this post -- I can't seem to edit it.


I noticed some rust spots in the trunk around the battery -- no doubt from the original Jaguar battery having boiled over and spilled battery acid there (I now have a sealed AGM battery, so this shouldn't happen again).


What is the best way of removing these rust spots? Baking soda? Some other cleaning liquid? I would appreciate any suggestions.

 

It would depend on on how much rust is there and if it's just surface rust. A die grinder or drill with a sanding wheel may eat through it pretty quickly. I've never had much luck with a liquid agent be used to eat away or cover rust. It's usually better to grind it down to new metal.

 

Agreed..New metal is the best to get to the bottom of the rust...But I would neutralize the area with baking soda solution first, then remove all the rust, re-prime and use an epoxy spray paint to finalize the top coating..since it's in the trunk, an exact color match wouldn't be my big concern.

 

Here are some before and after photos.

The first two are “before” photos, showing the rust stains. These were not much more thanstains that came from battery acid after it spilled over.The stains were easy to clean off the plastic battery tray (which I removed) and the pieces of vinyl that are stuck to the bottom of the trunk to keep the big plastic woofer enclosure from rattling and buzzing.

The next two photos show the battery tray after cleaning andthe woofer enclosure that normally sits under the spare tire and eats into trunk space.

After I got the metal trunk bottom as clean as I could, I painted it with Rustoleum brush-on paint in Royal Blue. Nothing is going to be an exact match because the trunk is not painted in the way that the rest of the car is. It’s more like light spray on top of silver-grey primer. And frankly, you may as well just use brush-on primer and not worry about matching anything. I did two coats and within 24 hours the paint was dry and I put everything back.

The next few photos show the stages of everything going back in. Now, with my AGM battery, which is spill proof, I won’t have to worry about battery acid bubbling over again.