tow hitch starting to rust, powder coating chipping???
 

My tow hitch is starting to rust and the powder coating is coming off.... its an 01 tacoma 3.4l with manufacturer hitch..... whats the best solution for this before the rust gets out of hand?

Best option would be to sand blast the powder coating off and then do a good prep/prime/topcoat like POR-15 (http://www.por15.com/) or similar. Powder coating has the very weakness you are seeing, it is basically a plastic coating melted on bare steel. As long as it is intact, all is good, but get a scratch or chip in it and the bare steel beneath starts rusting and bubbling up the coating.

Short of stripping it off, you can try sanding the rusty areas back to solid coating and then spot paint with a good rust resistant paint.

I am going to start cleaning a smittybuilt brush guard i just picked up last night. It is in good shape it just needs some sand/prime/paint work. It is going to be pretty sweet.

its not really a problem right now... i now live in a relatively dry area, but i am concerned its going to get worse and be more then a cosmetic issue...

do you think hamerite paint will work or is there something better?

Just sand it down, prep it, then used the hamerite paint. I did the same thing, turned out great

I used Tempo marine paint. Use a rust protecting sandable primer for steel. Then i used mercury black lacquer based paint. turned out really nice. I used a 4" die grinder to get the powder coating off. turned out pretty good.

I sanded and painted my hitch 2 years ago and it still looks good. I sanded it, used a metal primer and flat-black automotive spray paint.