Hello All!
I am the owner of a 2000 F-150 Lariat with 4x4 w/ 148k miles. Got it for virtually free. From what I've seen with this truck, mechanicals are good (drives forward, backward, and shifts into 4x4) and the frame is in pretty good shape! One small issue.. the forward right corner of the engine bay has virtually rusted out. The truck had a battery fire at one point and seems to have compromised some of the heat treatments used to prevent rust. The rest of the truck is largely in good shape (other than a rusted out exhaust which is expected) when it comes to rust and this is a Florida truck so there are no other factors that could drive new rust, only the spreading of the current rust. I've attached a picture from the underside of the truck looking through the rust hole along with a video . So, from what I understand this component is the core radiator support based on some research that I have done up to this point. Which as far as I understand is good! Because I see this part being sold for about $150 online.. so I was wanting to see what yall think of my plan of attack. So I'm going to park this truck somewhere and disassemble the front side and take out stuff around the battery to get a true scope of the damage.. assuming it is only the radiator support I will replace that and then use rust reformer on the other spots of the truck. Obviously I will not be surprised in the slightest if I see other areas of significant rust, but without doing a tear down this is the only area of rust that has actually compromised the integrity of metal. I'll keep this thread updated as I go.

In the meantime, thoughts from those who have experienced these issues? Is my train of thought sensible?

Thanks.

Video of rust spots around engine bay around battery. - https://www.veed.io/view/e04f549e-f2...ingWidget=true


Front corner rust.

 

yes, that's the core support.

I bought my 2000 Harley F150 brand new, have taken very good care of it and it has 270K miles on it now...the ONLY place where you can find rust, is the bottom of the core support.

Mine isn't as bad as yours, but I'm curious as to why/how this particular issue is so common. I'm going to eventually replace my core support, but it's not bad enough for me to do it yet.

 

Look at the other side too, I bet that is rusted out too.
I saw someone who fixed that by adding in a metal channel piece across the whole bottom.
It involved removing the radiator and welding.

 

I went through this a while back and don't think this is uncommon. A lot of gunk builds up in this area and is not removed in your normal washing. The repair was not necessarily complex, but there can be a lot of steps. I ended up removing the battery and tray, fan shroud, fan, grille, headlights, bumper, wipers, coolers, radiator, belt and miscellaneous bolted-on parts, and loosening the front fenders. I then had a new support welded in. While I was in there, I replaced the water pump, idler, belt, and front body mounts. Keep your PB Blaster and a grinder handy.

 

Yes, I took my top cover off to remove the fan shroud and found about 7" of leaves and pine needles and the whirlybirds debris built up down the bottom in front of the radiator.
No way can you even see it or get it out unless you remove the cover.
Mine was not removed for 23 years, the leaves may have retained the water to promote the rust.
But I know that mine was also rusted from the c rap they put on the roads in the wintertime too.
Anyone have an older truck?
Easy to pop that top cover off to look down in there and clean them out.

 

I think you are right on track. When I had to weld in new cab corners and rocker panels on my truck I first treated them with weld on primer to prevent rust. Need this especially if you can't get at the part after welding since the primer stays on the part after welding and prevents rust.

 

I believe you're referring to Weld-Thru Primer.

 

Fortunately, no major rust there at all! Only the one side.

Here's where I am at today, I've drilled out the spot welds; however, I'm struggling a bit as I am not feeling the front part loosen up at all, I've stuck my screw driver behind a lot of these holes to verify that the weld was broken loose; however, I'm still getting no play from the core radiator support. I've attached images of all the welds I have undone (the otherside is the same). Am I missing any welds? What is the trick to get this to loosen up? Edit: I have also undone the two frame bolts that run through the bushing in the bottom of the core support.

 

I don't recall there being a lot of magic tricks at this stage - more brute force. We had to drive a chisel between the various pieces to make everything let loose. That made room to insert the new piece into the channels. Then we hammered it all flat before welding.

 

In the first picture lower right on the mount, just to the left of the tire.
Could you have missed 2 weld spots to drill out there? Looks like the mount runs down to there.
I never had mine out, what I have seen is just in you tube videos of others doing it.

Edit, in the videos I have seen there was no drilling required, just all bolts to take off and they slid the fender away a hair.