I've got an 85 F250 that's mechanically in decent shape. Normally that's all I would care about but the hood is almost entirely covered in surface rust. I want to remove the rust and re-paint the hood. I don't care if the finished job is flawless, I just want something that will hold up to the elements and keep the rust away. I was planning on sanding, treating with naval jelly, laying down a layer or two of rustoleum spray can primer, then spray canning the paint on.

I realize that to get a good paint job the right tools (compressed air and spray gun) would be better, but all I want is good enough. Just want something that will prevent the rust from coming back and look halfway decent. It's really about function more than appearance. Any tips?

 

Your plan sounds sound. I have a krylon truck once and it was nice for touching up. Sand it down all the way though, get the whole hood shiny and silver. If you have rust spot after a good sanding, keep going. Then fill in any holes or pits with metal or bondo.

Then coat with what ever you like, rustolium isn't a bad choice and would be fine alone I think. However I am not sure on how well of a primer it will be, you may need to scuff it up a little. If you want to try to get it pretty, prime/scuff then paint and let the paint dry in a clean place for a day or so and then wet sand it to your liking.

Old cars used an enamel paint, not the fancy base/clear. I think with enough care you can get spray paint to look half decent.

 

I just did this on my bed rails and down the side to the pin stripe.. The rust was so bad it left pits being i am going to put bed caps on i didnt worry about smoothing the tops. But i used some gel form ospho typle stuff it works pretty well. And then i used sandable primer, sanded , sandable primer, sanded more and then sanded and hit it with a sealed primer, then hit it with some rustoleum black. Its holding up so far. Good luck!

 

If your going to cover it, my procedure is just hit it with a wire brush and coat with rustoleum. I did the floor board and bed rails on my 89 that way. I sold the truck 2 or 3 years later and no issues.

 

yes i forgot to mention the excessive use of a wire wheel cup on mine hehe .

 

Been a while since I did this but figured I'd post a followup.

1) Used a corded drill with a 3M rust/paint remover wheel to get the majority of the rust / paint / primer off the hood.
2) Sanded the entire hood down by hand with sandpaper of various grit. I think I started out with 60 grit on spots where the rust pitted into the steel and worked my way up to 300 grit.
3) Pulled the truck into the garage to get it out of the elements (bugs & wind). Coated the hood in naval jelly, let set, then wiped off as much as I could about a half hour later. Could definitely see it working as it got down into pits I missed and pretty much turned all the remaining rust black.
4) Rinsed off the hood with about a half gallon of distilled water - I may have screwed this step up because I could smell the steel oxidizing while doing it and the hood developed a hazy film.
5) Went over the hood again with 200 and 300 grit sandpaper to remove the haze and get back to bare metal.
6) Taped off everything but the hood with painter's tape and newspaper.
7) Applied 3 coats of primer - I found that one 12 oz. can of spray paint more or less gave one full coat. I used Rustoleum Automotive Primer, no particular reason other than the hardware store had Rustoleum brand primer, paint, and clear coat and I wanted to use one brand of paint all the way through. Painted each coat then waited between 30 minutes and an hour to dry, just until no more tackiness.
8) Applied 4 coats of base paint - went with metallic blue which was the closest to my original paint color. Although since the truck has spent 25 years in the Gulf Coast sun the rest of the exterior paint is pretty faded so the hood looks dark in comparison. Matches the paint on the door jambs pretty well though...
9) Applied 3 coats of clear coat.

The end result was decent looking paint job. The 4 coats of blue paint resulted in a fairly uniform blue. I probably could have put the extra effort to sand and polish out the orange peel the clear coat left but decided not to out of laziness. To this day, other than some tree sap and bird droppings, the paint job looks the same as a year ago. Not sure if it counts for anything but I took off the fire blanket on the underside of the hood (well it sort of took itself off) but no visible impact on the paint.

Overall it was a pretty cheap and easy job. I think I spent less than $100 on the whole thing, most of it on cans of spray paint. I probably wouldn't recommend doing an entire vehicle. The hood alone took a day and a half including prep time and dry time in the garage. Would definitely recommend an air powered spray solution for anything bigger than a single panel. Also a half face respirator with organic vapor / particulate matter cartridges was crucial for the rust removal / spraying done in an enclosed area.

 

Here is a good read for rattle can painting: Rattle Cans - Auto body tips