I spent a good part of the day yesterday surveying the rust damage
done by old man winter and PennDOT salting.  I finally fixed a big
rust area under the rear bumper left by DPO.

Anyway, listmember Wendy Silva turned me on to this Extend stuff sold
in various shapes and forms (I got the 8oz or so bottle).  It's
supposed to turn rust into a hard black paintable surface.  There's
some info about past experience in the archives as well

I tried it on several spots on the van after using a grinder and
brass brush on the really hard and crusty areas.  I just used a
small paintbrush and put 2 coats on like they tell you.

I found it to work particularly well on coarse stuff like the jack
mounts and the tow hooks.  The tow hooks just has surface rust and
some rust at the welded joints.  The Extend made them look pretty
much as new since they're supposed to be black.

Grinding to the metal and filling may be better in the long term,
but we'll see how long this lasts.

-Karl
Karl and Kristina Bloss, Trexlertown, PA
'87 GL Weekender  "Beverley"
VW shop list: http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/vwshops