Cure for flaking powder coat

[cabrioman]

Talking chassis coatings with Mike, he thought some people may be interested to see how I resolved my flaking powder coat problem, which quite a few of us have had issues with.

My Hunter rebuild started out with the intention of a quick clean up but the more I pulled off it the more powder coat disasters I found. A brief foray into Hydrate80 and POR15 paint treatment proved frustrating as the finish wasn’t what I wanted and it reacted or didn’t stick well to the powder coat.

The answer was drastic action, getting the chassis properly prepped and recoated.

The pictures below show the chassis in the blasting plant prior to recoating. I went to have a look at it at that stage and found where it had been blasted, the metal surface was textured like it had been etched, it certainly wasn’t like that where the original powder coat flaked off, so I can only assume the chassis were not blasted in that way when first coated.

The powder coating company applied a zinc powder primer coat before coating with black top coat as per the original finish.

Was it worth it? Well for me it was, I had to paint it anyway as I had cut the bulkhead to accommodate the BMW M20 engine and welded new repair sections in the transmission tunnel where it had been modified by Marlin to take an auto box conversion. And having it blasted sorted out the corrosion that had occurred with the original powder coat, something I could never have got as good by elbow grease, wire brush and sandpaper.

A tin of POR15 is £45, Hydrate 80 is £20, my solution was less than £350, more expensive for sure but I think worth every penny.

So just got to put it back together now, but at least all the holes are drilled!