60K miles...it was time to finally clean up the rust underneath

[NJ4X4]

Living in NJ where we see salted / brined roads all winter really does a beating underneath your truck! At exactly 60K miles....I finally had the time to do something about it. I used wire brushes, wire brushes on my drill, sandpaper....you name it to remove it the best I could. Then I coated the frame, suspension, bottom of the bed...basically everything with Corroseal rust converter. After that, I painted the frame and suspension with Rust-Oleum Professional enamel paint...mostly with brushes, some with a rattle can. After that, I taped off and covered everything so I could spray 3M undercoating on the bottom of the bed and the inside of the fenders and rocker panels. A ton of work....but it turned out pretty good. Unfortunately, I didn't get too many pics before I started. But, I did take some of the front after I removed the rust with the wire brushes. I also replaced the strut bars that were part of the Pro Comp suspension lift. The bars and bushings were destroyed...as you can see below. I'll never let another truck get this bad... it was pretty much a nightmare trying to make it look good again!

 

[kurek]

Good job pushing back against entropy! I just can't imagine living in the rust belt..

 

[NJ4X4]

Thanks! I need to move to Arizona or somewhere! Having a lifted truck doesn't help though... it can't go through a car wash. Though, I do go to a power washer after each storm....but it didn't seem to help too much.

 

[NJ4X4]

A couple more pics...

 

[rwhjr]

In my experience you should try to sand/scrape/anything you can do to try to get off all the rubberized undercoating you’ve sprayed on.

It’s hands down the worst thing you can do for rust protection. Plenty of evidence as well that it does nothing but accelerate rust especially if you’re saying you’re in a place with highly salted roads.

it’s definitely looking much better with the paint and the new ProComp bars though.

 

[NJ4X4]

Yeah, I hear bad things about undercoating. But, it only went on the exposed body... like the bottom of the bed. The way I see it, the truck is 7 years old and even though the outside and the interior look new... by the time it starts rusting through the body parts, I'm sure I won't own it anymore.

 

[rwhjr]

Yeah, I hear bad things about undercoating. But, it only went on the exposed body... like the bottom of the bed. The way I see it, the truck is 7 years old and even though the outside and the interior look new... by the time it starts rusting through the body parts, I'm sure I won't own it anymore.

Well that’s a crappy way to look at it (aka that it’ll be the problem of whoever you sell it to down the road) but the fenders and rockers where you sprayed are already prone and now they are more so with the salt and moisture the undercoating will trap.

Oh well I won’t spend all day worrying about the sucker who buys this truck next lol.

Sidenote: with regards to the ProComp bars you replaced. That’s some serious rust.....were you able to tell if it affected the structural capabilities of them? Or was it just cosmetic?

 

[NJ4X4]

Believe it or not....with all the layers that came off those bars, they were still structurally sound. But....obviously thinner than they used to be. It's not like you can measure the wall thickness...and who knows what the corrosion allowance is on them. They weren't expensive and the bushings were beat, so it was a no-brainer to just replace them. I also added many coats of the blue enamel paint on them too...so they should hold up better than the original ones.

 

[NJ4X4]

And when I talked to the guys at Pro Comp, their exact words were.... 'they don't do anything, they're basically there for looks"

 

[kurek]

Thanks! I need to move to Arizona or somewhere!

I lived there 20 years, and both in Phoenix and where I live now there are tons of 30, 40, 50+ year old survivors driving around rust free... not restored classics I mean like mostly un-cared-for beaters that are incidentally a half century old. I was behind a ~59ish Rambler last week... boy did that thing stink! But no rust!

 

[Anonymous007]

Hell if a job! Looks awesome, how long did it take


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[NJ4X4]

Hell if a job! Looks awesome, how long did it take


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Honestly....I don't know exactly how many hours. If I had to guess....at least 100 hours. If I was working right now....there's no way I could have found the time to do it....or at least not this good. I literally spent the first few days just wire brushing it. Fortunately, I have other cars....so I was able to just not drive it for a while.

 

[tron67j]

Believe it or not....with all the layers that came off those bars, they were still structurally sound. But....obviously thinner than they used to be. It's not like you can measure the wall thickness...and who knows what the corrosion allowance is on them. They weren't expensive and the bushings were beat, so it was a no-brainer to just replace them. I also added many coats of the blue enamel paint on them too...so they should hold up better than the original ones.

You could use a micrometer to measure the outside diameter. But you replaced them, so not really worth it. Looks good. I lived in Northern NY where salt falls as much as snow. I kept a beater FWD with four snow tires, never drove my trucks in it. Actually, my FWDs were better than a 4WD truck for me, always could steer out of a slide, and never got stuck once even though our snow measurements were in the hundreds of inches.

 

[NJ4X4]

You could use a micrometer to measure the outside diameter. But you replaced them, so not really worth it. Looks good. I lived in Northern NY where salt falls as much as snow. I kept a beater FWD with four snow tires, never drove my trucks in it. Actually, my FWDs were better than a 4WD truck for me, always could steer out of a slide, and never got stuck once even though our snow measurements were in the hundreds of inches.

I thought that too....about a micrometer to measure the thickness. But, I would think you would also want to know the original thickness to...to know how much had corroded. The two new bars were $65 and the bushings were $25....so it wasn't too much to just replace them.

 

[NJ4X4]

You could use a micrometer to measure the outside diameter. But you replaced them, so not really worth it. Looks good. I lived in Northern NY where salt falls as much as snow. I kept a beater FWD with four snow tires, never drove my trucks in it. Actually, my FWDs were better than a 4WD truck for me, always could steer out of a slide, and never got stuck once even though our snow measurements were in the hundreds of inches.

I still have the old bars....I think I'll hack-saw them in half just to see how thin they are!

 

[Princeton_Man]

That's a lot of work. Except for the exhaust, I coated everything under RAM with LPS3 when I got it. Also pulled tail lights, headlights and wheel well liners. I'm going to give it a little extra in the Fall. WV uses nothing but salt and cinders and during the Winter our roads stay white with salt.

 

[NJ4X4]

That's a lot of work. Except for the exhaust, I coated everything under RAM with LPS3 when I got it. Also pulled tail lights, headlights and wheel well liners. I'm going to give it a little extra in the Fall. WV uses nothing but salt and cinders and during the Winter our roads stay white with salt.

Does the LPS3 dry.....or does it stay wet like an oily finish?

 

[U&A]

“Fluid film” or “corrosion free” once a year minimum.


Truck looks nice though. Good job sir. Now do some preventative maintenance and rust PROF it every year.


Sent while firmly grasping my redline lubed RAM [emoji231]

 

[RoadRamblerNJ]

Living in NJ where we see salted / brined roads all winter really does a beating underneath your truck! At exactly 60K miles....I finally had the time to do something about it. I used wire brushes, wire brushes on my drill, sandpaper....you name it to remove it the best I could. Then I coated the frame, suspension, bottom of the bed...basically everything with Corroseal rust converter. After that, I painted the frame and suspension with Rust-Oleum Professional enamel paint...mostly with brushes, some with a rattle can. After that, I taped off and covered everything so I could spray 3M undercoating on the bottom of the bed and the inside of the fenders and rocker panels. A ton of work....but it turned out pretty good. Unfortunately, I didn't get too many pics before I started. But, I did take some of the front after I removed the rust with the wire brushes. I also replaced the strut bars that were part of the Pro Comp suspension lift. The bars and bushings were destroyed...as you can see below. I'll never let another truck get this bad... it was pretty much a nightmare trying to make it look good again!


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I've done that. No job worse!! God, I don't miss NJ!!! Great job sir!
I should do mine now. It's only 3 yrs old but it lived in Sussex County, NJ for 18 months (where winter lasts for 6 months) before I got to live in the FREE state of TN. Rust is cumulative. If you don't stop it with converter, it just keeps growing uglier.

 

[Princeton_Man]

Does the LPS3 dry.....or does it stay wet like an oily finish?

It never hardens , but drys to a light light touch. You can scrape off with a finger nail kind of like candle wax.