What is the best way to protect bare iron metal from rust? Options

[Langing]

I picked off a steering knuckle from a junkyard Celica, removed the ball joint and wheel bearing, and cleaned it with a wire wheel to the point where it seems rust and yuck free. Now it is almost all bare metal and I have two questions:

1) What is the best/easiest way to remove the remaining rust? (I don't have a sand blaster.)

2) What is a good/long-lasting way to protect the bare metal from rusting again?

To show what I am talking about I include a photo of the newly cleaned SN next to my Celica's SN (the one with with bent ears). The junkyard SN is the lighter of the two, the golden rust colored one; it came from a red 1995 Celica and is going on a white 1994 Celica:



Thanks to anyone who takes time to help me by discussing these questions.

[Nial]

Best thing to do, buy some "bilt hamber Deox c" this is a very effective rust remover, it will remove all remaining traces of rust, here's the hub carrier I soaked in Deox c for a few days, no other work was done on it at this stage,, no wire brushing, nothing



I also tried phosphoric acid but you have to wash it off which seems a bit odd as it reintroduces rust, if you want to go really over board you can get it zinc plated.

After removing the rust I agree with the Eastwood comment. It's a very good paint, they do something called chassis Black extreme in either a spray can (very expensive) or tin to use a brush with, I tried both, both work well. Leave it to dry for at least a week to reach maximum toughness before putting it onto the car (if you can leave it that long) remember to go for the extreme version, they do a chassis black that's not as tough.

You can also buy something called Epoxy mastic 121 from a company called rust busters, it's a two pack paint, extremely tough, used to paint the legs of oil rigs apparently! The finish isn't as smooth as the Eastwood paint but it's as hard as nails.

Powder coating I am not so tempted by, I did some tests years ago and as soon as the powder coating gets chipped it allowed water to get between the powder coat and the metal. It depends greatly on the quality of the powder coater, some are very good and produce a very tough finish that's nearly impossible to chip, some don't. So it's a bit of hit and miss.

Another option is something called POR15, they do a two pack anti rust paint that's pretty good, the finish is excellent, no matter how badly you apply it, it dries with a glass smooth high gloss finish, but it's not UV resistant so needs a top coat, they also do something called a hardnose paint, again a two pack paint, I used this on my fuel tank, the finish is OK but you can belt it with a hammer and it doesn't chip, very strong, very expensive.