Seat pan painting - best rattle can products..

[philosopheriam]

Folks,

I'm having the seat on my 1978 GS1000E redone, however, before the upholstery guy does his thing I would like to prime/paint the seat pan.

First, I'm going to soda blast the pan to remove rust/scale...

What spray can products would you recommend for a primer and topcoat?

I was thinking of using a decent primer/sealer and a gloss black topcoat.

Thoughts?

I know a lot of people talk about POR15 and rust stop products, however, my plan is to blast most of the rust away until the pan is relatively clean.

[SVSooke]

I'd use Appliance "Epoxy".It's not a 2 part product but a really hard enamel.One downside if you are in a hurry is it take at least a week to get any real strength to it.Goes straight on to bare metal with no primer.

[Nessism]

Por-15 is a great product for that application. Even if you media blast the pan there may be pitting with rust embedded. Por-15 will seal that over and protect the metal. Don't think you need to top coat it for that application because it won't see any UV light. Way better than rattle can paint.

[philosopheriam]

Folks,

The plot thickens... Not too thick, though :-)

I soda blasted my pan today and removed the majority of the old paint - I revealed a few areas that have small pinholes due to rust perforation. However, the overall condition of the pan is pretty good (see attached photos).

I was thinking of reinforcing the more heavily rusted areas with a sheet of fiberglass.

Thoughts?

[philosopheriam]

Another photo of rust

[philosopheriam]

Another photo of rust, upper left corner...

[philosopheriam]

Entire seat pan

[tkent02]

I wouldn't repair any holes. Structurally it doesn't need it. It's strong enough as is. It looks like your blasting media didn't touch the actual rust? Get the rust completely gone, electrolysis, sand blasting, acid cleaning, whatever you use get it all off. The whole thing down to clean gray metal, then paint it. If you can't get all the rust use POR-15 or one of the paints made for painting over rust. POR-15 is the best.

If you can get it all, epoxy paint is fine, it's hard stuff and will last a long time.

The only reason seat pans rust is that the foam holds water a long time whenever it gets wet, if you don't let that happen it will last forever.

I wouldn't use fiberglass, if water ever gets between the glass and the steel it will stay there and rust it all more.

[philosopheriam]

I soda blasted the seat pan first in an attempt to be as gentle as possible... I can always move up to glass bead...

If you look at the photos, a couple of the pinholes are near the hinges. That's why I am concerned about reinforcement.

[Nessism]

That's a job for POR-15 for sure. I'd blast off as much rust as possible first though. Another option is Metal Prep from Home Depot (phosphoric acid). That stuff is awesome for eat off rust.

[Grimly]

I fibre-glassed a seat pan 20 years ago and shortly thereafter that bike was taken off the road, so it's never seen rain (or very little) on the seat. However, I noticed that years of sitting in dry-ish storage have caused the fibre-glass to seperate in parts from the steel.
So, it works for a while, but don't trust it.
If I were re-doing that pan of mine I'd silver solder or braze some re-inforcement patches on it, or simply look for a new fibre-glass base (the other bike has had one, with no problems whatsoever).

[philosopheriam]

I'm having a friend who is a competent metalworker repair the pan with a couple steel patches... Seemed like the best long-term solution...

[MikeyF]

Por 15 is probably the best for your seat but for rattle can paint you can buy 2K. Eastwood and a couple others make it and it sets up strong. You do need a mask to spray it.

[sxrupert8]

The Chassis Saver is a good alternative. It is a 1-tep process and cheaper than por-15.

[BigGun1]

Another vote for POR-15, I've never used any paint that's better. People have asked me where I got parts plastic dipped not realising that they are painted with POR.