Trailer paint recommendation

[WinterDeere]

I wonder what the value of the "rust converting" paints are over just treating with Ospho and priming. That's what I have done and it seems to work fine. A lot cheaper.

I've used them in places where getting the metal totally clean is impractical or not worth the effort, and they do seem to work reasonably well. But the trailer I'm renovating right now is getting needle scaled, then sanded, and primed in regular red oxide (high zinc) primer, before painting. It's a little more time consuming, but too easy to do on something like a trailer, to not just do it right.

That said, I may do the backing plates for the brakes and springs in rust-converting primer, as it's not worth trying to needle scale them clean.

 

[AnotherBueller]

I painted a trailer decades ago with Dupont Imron and looks like new...

A friend was moving and gave me the paint...

Imron is an aircraft paint that holds up very well, stays shiny and doesn't fade. Used to be the go to paint on airliners.
Been out of the trade for too many years, so I don't know whats in use now.

 

[JBF43]

I wonder what the value of the "rust converting" paints are over just treating with Ospho and priming. That's what I have done and it seems to work fine. A lot cheaper.

Agreed. I bought a 76 Chevy C60 back in 2017 for a work truck to tow my tractor. When I got it, there was no bed on it, just open frame and a lot of surface rust. I ran a wire wheel and cup brush over the frame every place I could get to and then Osphoed the whole thing. Primed with Rust-O-Leum rusty metal primer. Then sprayed with R-O-L gloss black. Present day, other than a little dirt from occasional driving in rain, it still looks like it was just painted. Did this same thing on a car hauler I bought back around 2000. The paint on this is just now showing its age, all these years later, and it sits out in the weather all the time.

 

[olenjohn]

Tnemec paint system. Two part epoxy that I had experience with building a sewage treatment facility. I painted my truck tool box with it. The stuff is bulletproof. Expensive but hard and durable like cement - cement backwards spells Tnemec.

 

[kenmbz]

I used POR on my old cars trunk after sanding and it still looked good 10 years later.

 

[JPRambo]

I had a tractor bucket built and it was coated with POR-15. The paint lasted a long time.