2004 Chevy Monte Carlo SS
2004 Chevy Monte Carlo SS
March of 2010 - UMI Performance Trailing Arms
Reconditioning Body Brackets
After removing the brackets from the Monte that held the trailing arms to the body, my friend Jeff had
someone he knew sand blast them for me. No more rust! Now, I had to
recondition them so they would be ready to put back on the Monte. I bought a small can of
POR15 from a local automotive paint supply store. This is GREAT stuff! My first
experience with it was on the floor pans of my '84 Camaro. Done right, it will form a very
strong bond to the metal. I remember when it was used on my friend's Jeep, we wanted to sand it
smooth (to feather it into the rest of the body). Using an aggressive grit sanding disc and a
power sander, I think we had better odds of sanding away any exposed steel!!
For this application, I brushed it on with a small foam brush (and hung the pieces in my laundry room to
paint them, as temperatures in the garage were too cold at the time). Since the metal was freshly
sand blasted and blown clean of debris, I did not
require use of the POR15 prep sprays and solvents. I painted directly onto the brackets.
What is tough to see is that even where the brackets did not have rust forming, the metal is still very
porous (which is even better for POR15, it soaks in like a sponge). There is about 2-3 coats of POR15 on these
by the time I finished. POR15 also does a great job of "flattening" out as it dries (even when it
is brushed on, it can usually give you a finish so good, you would think it was sprayed on). It also
filled all the pores that resulted from the sand blasting (and almost filled the rough spots from the rust
that was developing).
The last part was taking them out the garage on a better temperature day and top coating them with a spray paint.
Final pics are on the next page. I used a "fancy" sounding, black gloss epoxy paint I found at the parts stores.
I did my best to lightly scuff the POR15 surface on these brackets (NOT easy to do).
I applied 2-3 coats of the epoxy paint (required no primer).
Remove Old Arms (Main)
Reconditioning Body Brackets
Final Installation
UMI Performance - W-Body Parts
