Stop the rust on old fridge lines?

[Ryan P R]

My old fridge has the quite the build up of rust on the tubes on the back side. I'm tempted to lightly brush it off then prime and paint it to help prevent it from rusting through in the future.
I'm hesitant because Im a little afraid of doing more harm than good during the process.

Has anyone done this?

[Francesca Knowles]

A light brush to remove surface rust would do no harm...after that, Rust Mort will stop it altogether.

Francesca

[David Tilston]

Joe Thoen at Trillium / Outback can rebuild the cooling circuit of propane fridges. He just doesn’t do it any more. Actually he has a collection of hundreds of what I assume are dead cooling units, just the pipes, no fridge.
He tells me that they corrode through and leak, mostly at the pipe that is under the insulation. Makes sense, the hottest part of the system. Joe tells me that when they rebuild one, they cut that section out and replace it all together. I guess, my point is, if you can see it, typically that is not where it will fail.
I suppose you could take off the insulation, and paint with high heat paint. That might make it last longer. But, I have several of what must be at least 30 year old fridges. They do seem to last, and are available at my local wrecker for $25, money back guarantee.
Oddly I see some relatively new ones for sale on kijiji. They say something like, "smelled like ammonia for a while and now doesn’t cool anymore. $500, was $800 new". A part of me want's to call them and let them know it's worthless, and they should move on.