Frame rust, Line-X, and undercoating

The F550 I just bought came from Iowa corn country and has rust damage up where it was difficult to rinse off. The rust is not bad but it looks like crap and I want this truck to be a keeper. You may have seen this pic in another thread.

I found a local guy who will sandblast it for $200, which seems really fair. I just need to remove what I can and loosen up the wiring harness so's he can pull it aside.

I had the idea to get the frame Line-X'd after it was clean, so I called a guy I trust who does a lot. His entire 70s Blazer's sheet metal is Line-X'd, for example. He said heck, he'd take my money, but I should not do it. Too many problems with getting a good ground on the frame for lights etc, and there's always some pocket or three of rust under the coating. His suggestion after sandblasting is to just buy some cans of that nasty sticky 3M undercoating and have at it like a rattle can paint job.

Anybody BTDT?

Rustoleum Professional High Performance Protective Enamel in black

Texite...it's very similar to cosmoline.

Ed

I once owned a Range Rover that had lived its first 15 years of life in Marseille France. A salt water port on the Med. No rust anywhere, because the owner was a merchant marine and he'd coated the whole underside in Cosmoline. Even the alloy wheels. The only rust it had was spots of DM corrosion electrolysis where aluminum body panels were riveted onto steel body supports. Can't fight that.

I'm thinking that I'll do that with Texite or similar. I believe that I'd miss spots with the Rustoleum and rust will creep back in.

Anybody use/heard of fluid film product. I've heard some good things about it in highly corrosive applications?

New Hampshire uses a ridiculous amount of salt. I got a used F450 15 years ago and did about what you are doing. Sandblasted the frame, painted it with blue Rustoleum ( easy to see bad spots) Then just hand rubbed red gease on the whole thing.

I felt like I was being a little OCD about it and mechanics that had to work on it hated it but no rust has re-appeared.

After some comparitive tests with Fluid Film and other spray on things on my other vehicles, Castle Endura spray grease has won.

It's important to me to be able to see where the rust is starting again so a see-thru coating is important to me.

I have been using this stuff on a 550 I bought a little more than a year ago. http://theruststoppros.com/?gclid=C...-ULHLKMqUJoL8D4oIgOLDX4aAukbEALw_wcB#packages

I plow with it, not one spot of rust has appeared and I just re-coated it before this winter. It is a little messy because it stays wet, but it seems to continually keep creeping which is kind of nice, especially with all the goo they put on the roads to deal with the ice and snow…

Tags, which stuff?

Fluid film is lanolin based, sheep wool grease/wax. It smells a little like sheep. I think it sprays on better than cosmoline, and probably washes off faster, but otherwise similar. I've never used cosmoline on a vehicle, only seen it on old parts wrapped in paper and soaked in cosmoline, so I don't know it's a fair comparison. Don't form a film like undercoating that will hold salt sand and water in a pocket all through summer if you don't drive enough in the rain, or wash the underbody well enough.

I’m such a moron, I forgot to add the link, I just added the link to it, it’s called New Hampshire oil, similar to fluid film but you can get it tinted black as well as clear.

http://theruststoppros.com/?gclid=C...-ULHLKMqUJoL8D4oIgOLDX4aAukbEALw_wcB#packages

Thanks for starting this thread. I am following with much intrigue. The $200 sandblasting seems cheap. I have heard stories that the blast media makes a big difference and that some of the sands can become embedded and hard to catch or remove. I am not sure how likely that is. Thanks for sharing your research. I look forward to your results.

Have used both, I spray 2 gallons of fluid film on my pickup truck every fall, the trick is to use the gun that is made for fluid film it has a wand that can reach into body panels and sprays in a radius. They also make a rattle can with a small hose to get in small crannys. I cut holes strategicly and have plastic plugs that go into the holes, taking the tail lights out and spraying the different layers of metal that are glued together with foam over the rear fenders is important. The fluid film goes on well and doesnt drip and is environmentally friendly. If you tell yourself it smells like apples it helps, cause it is renderings from processing wool, actually got a real wool blanket for christmas smells just like it. Prefer it to the bar and chain oil i used in the past that drips for weeks.

NHNU I used this year on the Gfriends sons car because of the smell, it is supposed to smell like cherrys, well it smells like cherrys as much as fluid film smells like apples.

I prefer fluid film, goes on nicer, nunh is black so it spruces up a an older rusty frame.

Tags said:

I’m such a moron, I forgot to add the link, I just added the link to it, it’s called New Hampshire oil, similar to fluid film but you can get it tinted black as well as clear.

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There are several pretty good goolagtube videos about that New Hampshire oil. Only complaint was that it is too runny, needs to be reapplied after summer.

Seems I shot myself in the foot already. The sandblasting guy for $200 wants it to be clean of oil... and I Bin Readin on rust converters; all require oil-free surface. I've doused this truck liberally with ATF/Acetone mix in order to get nuts and bolts free. Had to go buy a 3/4" impact driver and sockets just to get the lug nuts loose, for example. I doused the leaf packs in anticipation of pulling out a leaf or two for better ride. I doused the airbag perches to R&R, as they got bent from using the boom off to one side, with no outriggers on the truck (I removed the crane).

So I could either
1) attempt a fastidious degreasing op on what is essentially a porous media (rust)
2) or consider using an dinosaur-based rust resistant undercoating instead

Because this is Central Texas, and despite the Grand Solar Minimum we are predominantly dry and entirely salt-free, I'm leaning heavily towards option 2. Flying gravel from our country driveways would also pose less risk to a thick wax/petro coating than to converted rust aka Fe2O3.

My leading candidate now is CRC 06026 Heavy Duty Corrosion Inhibitor in rattle cans. https://tinyurl.com/yxxngbj8
What do you guys recommend? Keep in mind that it's a work truck to haul a heavy trailer to the gravel quarry and build driveways. It's not a restoration project. Just a daily work driver.

I need to decide what to do with rusty wheels now too. In between the duallies, it's nasty. I don't believe it's structural yet, but I would like to have 6 nice looking painted wheels on the truck. Even a work truck gets cleaned up once in a while. I'm going to take them to the sandblasting guy one day soon so he can see how much ATF is on there and say yeah or nay.

Getting the ATF off is easy... Car wash. Or get a jug of "Oil Eater" and a weed sprayer and soak it down and rinse it off.
As far as a coating, in your weather conditions I would just soak it good with black Rustoleum paint. I've done a bunch of trucks and trailers with the stuff and it holds up just fine. Even in the PNW with a little salt spray in the winter.

I would just blast the thing off with a hot water pressure washer and some good detergent, maybe hit the really bad spots with a wire brush or wire wheel, brush on some POR 15, then coat the snot out of everything with fluid film or the New Hampshire oil and go to work....

Tags said:

I would just blast the thing off with a hot water pressure washer and some good detergent, maybe hit the really bad spots with a wire brush or wire wheel, brush on some POR 15, then coat the snot out of everything with fluid film or the New Hampshire oil and go to work....

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We had a kerosene burning hot water blaster at our old company in France. Had to sell all that 220v/50hz stuff when we escaped. Still looking for one here, a MIG, and more. Gotta find good used deals or the budget goes wild. So right now I only have cold water pressure washer. I'm going to try Simple Green soak then blast it again. Once daytime temps get back up over 40. Darned global warming...lol

Keep an eye out at https://www.purplewave.com/ and
https://www.rbauction.com/ for some of that stuff you are wanting. Both deal in those everyday and are potentially close to you at times.