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Wheel Wells

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I am working on a Stag which sat in a barn for 30 years, I got carried away scraping off the underseal in the wheelwells. It was cracked and I expected to find some rust underneath. To my surprise, all I found was the original paint, with patches of primer (red oxide, I presume). No sign of rust at all. Of course, I scratched the paint while I was scraping, and now I have no rotection against stones etc. I put a coat of primer on to protect the metal while I was away - last chance I had to work on the car was November. Now I wonder what you guys would recommend to protect the wheel wells. I thought stone chip. I found a U-Pol stone chip kit on Amazon, but my local parts places don't seem to know what stone chip is - they want me to use 3M Schutz - seems more like underseal than stone chip. Any advice?

While I am on - I have some self etching primer. Does that only work on shiny new metal or can it be applied over sections with some old paint?

Cheers
Alistair
 
Self etching primer is better on new metal.....I paint all my whelwells the same shiny color as the car.
 
Thanks Tony

Interesting that you use regular paint in the wheel wells - I always assumed that something thicker/less fragile was needed to avoid chips and to reduce the sound of small stones banging around. Is that not the case? A lot of salt goes on the roads up here and it seems like stone ships would quickly lead to problems. Is modern paint just more chip resistant than I imagine?

Cheers
Alistair
 
Remember, I'm in the South.....you probably need more protection up there.
 
Mine is same shiny paint as the body too. I like the look and haven't found any problem with chips - epoxy primer helps but so far so good - and I almost never drive on gravel and then slowly
 
SEM makes a chip guard that is clear and can be tinted with body color. Its pretty good stuff. It has a activator and can be used with a schutz gun or regular paint gun if you want a pretty smooth texture. I can get you a part number if you PM. I used to use the 3m body schutz and then paint but the texture was very hard to control. If the product sat on the shelf for a while it went on like pebbles. I THINK it was u Pol that our local body shop supply house carried. It was a product from England and worked very well.Then they quit carrying it. Bob
 
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