Subzero02

On my truck I have a good deal of surface rust I'd like to take care of before it gets worse. I don't have any space for doing anything large scale myself because I have to do everything to my truck in the street and keep the neighbors happy lol. I want to find out if any shops will do a thourgh removal of rust ( possibly lift the bed to get under there) then paint the entire underside of the truck with POR15 or similar. Do y'all think this would be a good solution? My truck lived on the OBX for some part of its life and is a beach veteran so it has a good amount of surface rust. I've already got rust so an undercoat will further damage. Has anyone ever done something like this to their own truck? I really like my two trucks ( a classic 1968 F100 Ranger and a 2002 F150 Lariat FX4) and I want to keep them for a very long time ( in good order) so this rust thing is important to me. The F100 is just old so its got a few problem areas but is more controlled. What other options do I have too? Thanks for any advice

Tackle

It's been done.

A shop will charge a ton in labor due to the amount of time it's going to take, if they will do it at all.

Rust proofing is one thing, fixing rust is another. Taking your truck apart to do both is not going to be cheap.

Personally, if you're not going to do it yourself I would say you are better off selling and buying something rust free for the amount of money involved. Rust WILL come back, it's inevitable, there is water in the air. My 2 cents anyway...

TLB4

Also, on most vehicles, if surface rust is starting to show, it's usually deeper into the metal than you think. Rust usually comes from the back and pushes to the front where the paint is. I would double check all the metal before you tackle anything. Because if it's bad on the backside, you're better off to just order some new body panels, unless you want to roll, weld and grind everything to fresh metal again. If it's rusted through, there is no saving it, just making it look decent for a while until the rust pokes through again.

Jackedup00

I would get all of the rust off that you can with a wire brush and spray the rest with rustoleum

Subzero02

The body on the top looks like brand new on it. The whole truck looks like it could be brand new from 8 feet away if you didn't see the bottom.Rockers are good from the looks. No holes or deep pitting even on the underside. There are no paint bubbles or anything like that. I'm talking about the front plates and around the tie rods and suspension, driveshaft, frame ( ain't bad I just want it done), leaf springs, bed mounts, other random parts underneath. Its just got some surface rust on the bottom that needs attention. I took off the front skid plate to do my own rust performer and paint today and the inside side still had most paint on it and not bad rust. The bottom road side was all lightly coated with rust. If this is an example of the rest of the truck then I should not have that bad of a bill for the shop. I remember a really expensive shop ( I won't have my cars go their as I've heard bad things about them) said they would do the underside on my 1968 for 2,500 in Rhinoliner. I'd pay a shop around that for the truck if I absolutely had to. Its worth it to me to keep the truck alive. I got it exactly the way I want it and getting a new vehicle would be a PITA. Seems everytime I get on I have to drop $800+ in repairs and DMV fees. Rust will come back but if it does next time I can combat the small areas that pop up once the whole bottom is fixed.

me1234

You may want to look into eastwood's rust repair products. I personally have never used it but read about it in Super Chevy magazine. Using these tool they completely removed the surface rust off of a 1970 Z28 Camaro and added rust preventative to it. This probably won't be useful on the body of the car as they repainted the Camaro anyway(actually they primed it, the magazine has an article every once and a while updating the progression of the car and has do-it-yourself walkthroughs of the work). Anyway, Eastwoods products will likely help any frame surface rust.

Here's a link to the site:

http://www.eastwood.com/paints/rust-...treatment.html

Super Chevy Magazine recommended contacting Eastwood so they could recommend which products to buy for each specific situation.

97' 4.6

Doing a mild restoration on my 97 at the moment, removed the bed and por15'ed the frame inside and out.

The bed bolts on these trucks are tough little ****ers, they are an odd size external torx (somewhere in between a t55 and a t60). I broke 2 t55 bits on a 1/2 in. breaker bar and only got one out, ended up torching the heads off them. Other than the mounting bolts there's no reason why the average guy, and an average friend, can't pull a bed off. Keep that in mind.

Subzero02

I went around to some shops that each agreed that something needed to be done. They kept telling me that they wouldn't do it either because they didn't have equipment or they didnt want to because it was too big of a job. They did sent me to a different place that said the same thing. My biggest concern on the rust is the radiator support metal and the frame and other parts with the tie rods. My left rear brake locked up too so I had to deal with that today. Can I replace that support easily? Good news is the shops all said the price range should be $180-$600 for a good job. Just gotta find the place that will do it.

Subzero02

I'm gonna go take some pictures to let you know better what I'm talking about. I might not have my terms correct. There is some half way disintegrated flexible flap attached to this piece that I'm not sure whats its purpose is. The skid plate blocks all view of this part if you have one. I'd also like to show you the other rust so you could compare to your truck to see if mine is accelerated much more. All the other rust seems to be able to be easily fixed as there is no real nasty looking areas except that part. I'd really like to get it blasted off then I can go about painting it with some POR15 or Eastwood product.