Rock Slider Priming and Paint
Reviving this thread as I just did this with my SSO sliders and wanted to share what I found. I looked at many options from powder coating, bedliner coating, paint over self etching primers, farm equipment paints and everything in between. I decided not to go with any of those based on the expedience others have had, good and bad. I think the best and most used option is powder coating but even that can come off in some cases.
In the end I decided to try POR-15 POR aka (Paint Over Rust:
POR-15® Super Starter Kit - Black), specifically the starter kit, with a flat paint top coat. The kit comes with three steps to get your project ready for paint. I had never used this stuff before but from my research it looks like it would do the trick for keeping my sliders from rusting out and give a hard outer shell coating. This coating is supposedly very similar to marine style coatings.
Step one is to use the cleaner/degreaser, then the metal prep, which appears to etch the steel, then the POR-15 primer coat. My sliders came with a coat of oil to keep them from rusting too badly and the degreaser easily removed it. The final step is to paint the sliders with a good topcoat of your choice. I opted for flat black rust-oleum as I have had good success with it in the past as a top coat.
The POR-15 kit had plenty of material to do both sliders which included the perf plating on the top. The final Rust Preventative coating is very thick, I used a sponge roller to cover in two coats. BE SURE TO WEAR THICK RUBBER GLOVES! This stuff does not come of the skin easily. Turns out that cooking oil (PAM etc..) helps to remove it from skin if you get some on you. Trust me, just wear gloves and save yourself the headache. The thin gloves in the kit are worthless and too thin and will tear or break on the steel edges, especially if you have dimpled perf plate.
So the POR-15 rust preventative coating is very tough! Watched a video on Jay Leno's garage about it and i can tell you this stuff created a hard non-porus coating and appears that it will not easily chip off or crack from dents, rock rubs or dings. You must use a top coat of paint over it for any areas that will be exposed to sunlight. Apparently, it breaks down from UV so for armor under you vehicle it should be fine. Also, READ THE DIRECTIONS, there is some pretty harmful stuff in the coating and if you plan to spray it, you will need a heavy paint style respirator, and no a dust mask over your face is not enough! The POR-15 is glossy black after it dries however, you can then apply any color top coat that you like.
Another alternative coating that appears to be highly recommended on some other old car forums is called "master series silver primer:
MasterSeries Silver Primer/Sealer-1 Quart-$37.00 - MasterSeries Coatings I have not used this product but came across it after I had purchased the POR-15. It's much cheaper than POR-15 and looks like another good option.
Hope this info will help some other looking to protect their sliders and other armor.
I will post some pics of the sliders after the POR-15 was applied and after I put on the final top coat. I will also post a followup after a few good hits on the sliders and let you know how it's holding up.
