My daughter being off school today gave me some extra time to work on the front panel, and so was able to strip the paint off plus give it a good sanding to try and remove as much of the surface rust as possible. It seems to have worked pretty well, but I think a coat of rust converter will be necessary to reach down into the bottom of all those remaining almost-microscopic corrosion pits. Interestingly, there appears to be some small repairs (spot-weld-sized brown spots in the photos) to the sheet metal around the central opening, that were under the factory paint. A little product prep before painting?
The front panel after washing. Next on the list is sand down the rear side where necessary.
