Exposed aluminum ok?

[MarkR]

The Portwagon, circa April 2021

A local body shop/hot rod guy was kind enough to help me by removing some ancient 15 year old vinyl dog decals which had also been painted on and clear coated over. I tried everything to get them off, chemicals, eraser wheels, heat gun, etc. Nothing worked. But the dogs HAD TO GO before the start of football season. I was not showing up at an away game halfway across the country with big poodles on my coach (Portuguese water dogs actually).




He had to sand them off. He was able to remove the vinyl and adhesive with minimal underlying paint loss on the passenger side which was a huge unexpected bonus, but the drivers side was a big problem(s) and he had to take everything down to bare aluminum (shockingly close match to the paint color!).



I don’t want to insult this local legend by asking if the bare aluminum will be ok in pretty constant use until he has time to repaint those panels in a couple of months. So instead, I’ll insult you all . Any issues driving around like that with no paint or primer? I guess aluminum doesn’t rust, but…?

Thanks in advance

 

[Mike_H]

Aluminum doesn't rust like steel...but it will oxidize and corrode. If water gets under the paint, it will start a problem. I'd get it covered ASAP unless you feel like painting it ALL

 

[tmsnyder]

there's a special primer you need to use first, I think you can even get it in a spray can.

 

[TR 1]

I would not sweat it for a few months... Though I would probably put a coat of wax on it just to be safe... Check out the airstream forums to see what they use. You could probably even throw some floor wax on it... (Some say the floor wax option can actually turn out surprisingly good) Even if it doesn't look great, you're just trying to keep the water out... Not really concerned with appearance....

 

[kidjedi]

To take this a step further (and I know I'm "outing" myself as an airstream guy here), can these aluminum panels be polished like an Airstream? I've never seen a shiney GMC, but that's all the more reason to do it. I know there's plenty of fiberglass that would need to remain painted, but I have also seen some surprisingly good "mirror finish" paint that has recently become available. Grinding and polishing is a serious pain in the keester, but so is a $12k paint job.

 

[MarkR]

So it seems the body shop guy was just pulling my leg.

Upon closer inspection, that old green GMC primer peeked out of the bottom of a couple of little divots in the paint. Apparently several previous paint jobs were the same Washington State silver/gray. He just rough sanded off the top stratum on the driver’s side, not down to the aluminum as he had previously promised he did not want to do (paint sticks to paint, bare aluminum can be trickier, he said).

Luckily, he had fair success sanding just the vinyl dogs on the passenger side without completely destroying the underlying paint. Many more eyeballs on that side until I get it refinished.

I believe this off-season may be the time to pull the trigger on my original plan of an above-the-beltline 3M/vinyl wrap instead of new paint, although that Airstream idea is SO very interesting. If I changed the 1/2 wrap every 5-8 years, it may cost about the same as a new quality paint job in what’s left of my lifetime. Now to convince the missus of that logic!