Removing powder coating

[oli]

I hate powder coating!
I removed the winch bumper on one of my Landies as it was looking a bit scruffy (four years old - the bumper, not the disco!) and I spent a filthy afternoon with a grinder brush removing the powder coating before I could repaint it. Literally 50% flaked off with some really deep rust pitting underneath it. Ironically it's a pig to remove when you want to get rid of it. The bare metal bracket I added and just painted with primer and a rattle can was starting to stain but no meaningful rust and the galvanised recovery rings looked like new.

Learning point - there's no substitute for galvanising if you don't want something to rust. Think ahead and get things sand blasted, rather than having a miserable Sunday afternoon!

Has anyone else got tales of woe about powder coating to share, or did I get a bad example? - thinking about it the sill guards I have are powder coated and are fine, despite a few scrapes.

Oli

[valhalla]

Nothing powder-coated lasts on Skye. You are bang-on with the "galavanising" solution, it really is the only way to go.

Almost everything aftermarket for Landrovers seems to be particularly bad (done on the cheap), the most memorable being a bull-bar in powder coat that rusted through after a year! I have tried and failed to find parts done properly, so the only way (according to the local sages) is to remove all the paint, then send it off to the galvanising pro's. A local guy has done that with most of his Range Rover Classic (on the premises for a few years now.....) which has perfect inner-wings, etc. etc.

[oli]

A land rover/range rover with a galvanised chassis and shell (minus the aluminium panels obviously) would be amazing - I'd just be worried about the distortion ruining those legendary paper thin shut lines...

[valhalla]

The body-team at Landrover used to joke that there were two things you could see from space; 1) the great wall of China, and 2) the door gaps on a Range Rover