Frame de rusting (1 Viewer)

[Bubblee]

First and foremost, Hello fellow wrench heads and fans of the cruiser!!

Quick question: Whats the most efficient way to clean up the frame. I'm on a tight budget, so taking it to sandblasters would be my last option, due to the size of subject the electrolysis is out of the questions also... Naval Jelly, well that works on on surface rust, but it would take me months to do a frame with it... so do you have any suggestions/tips/tricks/ or just wanna say hello?

Also, how rust free the frame has to be to seal it with POR 15 or EastWood products??

Now before you advise me to visit google, be forewarned that I already did. And frankly Naval Jelly is the best I could come up with followed closely by molasses and using cola LOL

Also, I heard arguments for both, complete derusting before sealing, or some rust OK....

Im clueless

Thanks!!!!!!

 

[kulangot]

You need to research what is called "Swedish Standard" for metal preparation. Has it's basis in prep for steel oil rigs out in the North Sea.

Go Here:

http://www.zrcworldwide.com/pdfs/t_surface_prep.pdf

That was the first link I found.

Here is how I do it:

1st Power wash and use engine cleaner to remove gunk. If you don't get the grease off first, you'll just spread it around with the wire brush and cause paint adhesion problems.

2nd SCRAPE with a paint scraper, putty knife or what ever can get the job done. This removes all of the scale. Scrape in a criss cross pattern to get the most effect. Learn how to sharpen the scraper with a file and burnisher.

http://www.joewoodworker.com/scraper.htm

3rd wire brush. Again, in at least three directions. If you use a power tool to do it, you risk polishing the high spots which in turn causes problems with paint adhesion. I like to use a variable speed 4 1/2 grinder made by Milwaukee that can run really slow and not do this. Also safer.

http://www.mytoolstore.com/milwauke/6154-20.html

Last, wash again.

THEN paint. Prep is everything. On one of my FJ40's I did this in 1999 with POR 15. Recently after 7 winters on the east coast and driven in every snow, it still looked great. One of my buddies just slapped some POR on over his rust and it all flaked off the next year.

I have also used the stuff from Eastwood with great results and prefer it to POR.

You can make some custom wire brushes and scrapers that have Z bends in them for getting inside the frame. I used cut down chimney brushes. Works great. You can also get great results with a few short sections of chain welded to the end of a steel rod. Hit the ends of the chain with hard surfacing welding rod and chuck it in a LARGE variable speed drill and just pulse the trigger. Insert in the frame holes and stand back.

Needle scalers are also great.

Has to be 50 degrees or warmer for 24 hours when you paint, don't ask me why I know this.

Wear eye protection!

Sandblasting is only ideal when you have a bare frame. Sandblasting down with anything assembled just destroys anything and everthing that the sand can get into. Steering boxes, axles, engines, etc...

-Stumbaugh

 

[aksnowryder]

I would agree... prep is everything. I pressure washed my frame, wire wheeled, used a grinder... pressure washed again then more wire wheel. One last pressure wash with Dawn dishsoap in the mix and when she dried, painted with POR. The frame came out great. As far as longevity, I can't speak to that yet, but do know it was prepared correctly and should stay for many years to come. I was impressed with the POR and the way it went on. It dried really, really hard too, which I think is a good thing. The stuff I had the hardest time getting off the frame wasn't grease, oil or rust, but old undercoating. I used a torch and scraper.

 

[Coolerman]

Unless you have hours and hours of time, a place large enough to do the job, and the tools to do it, I would personally just skip straight to the sand blasting. I bet you will be out the same amount of money and you will end up with a frame free of rust ready to prime and paint. Plus it's much easier to see cracks in the frame when it is rust free.

I have done it the manual way with wire brushes and it just takes too much time. I recently stripped my FJ frame with a personal sand blaster. With the blaster I was able to do the entire frame in one weekend.

I also have to give a plug to the Rust Bullet product. Goes on easy, does not have to be top coated and is now available in black. Just wear gloves and be SURE to whiz before you start.

 

[vtcruiser60]

That tip on using hardfaced chain is great. I would have never thought of that. I imagine you could use various thicknesses of chain to do the job....as well as various lengths of pipe.

Great tip......for an annoying problem.

 

[kulangot]

Unless you have hours and hours of time, a place large enough to do the job, and the tools to do it, I would personally just skip straight to the sand blasting. I bet you will be out the same amount of money and you will end up with a frame free of rust ready to prime and paint. Plus it's much easier to see cracks in the frame when it is rust free.

I have done it the manual way with wire brushes and it just takes too much time. I recently stripped my FJ frame with a personal sand blaster. With the blaster I was able to do the entire frame in one weekend.

I also have to give a plug to the Rust Bullet product. Goes on easy, does not have to be top coated and is now available in black. Just wear gloves and be SURE to whiz before you start.

Coolerman,

I agree, IF you have the truck torn down, THEN you have the option to sand blast. But, if you don't want to take the truck off the road and you want to paint the frame this is your only option. Sand blasting the frame of a fully assembled truck is going to wreck the mechanical parts. You'll also spend a LOT of time getting all of sand out of every last nook and cranny. One of my friends and mentors is a master of car restoration with 40 years of experience. He refuses to work with sand blasting because it ruins sheet metal (not so much with cruisers thicker metal but still causes some damage) and because it gets into every mechanical part. So, in his shop, they do it all by hand.

There is a new type of blasting out now called Dry Ice Blasting where you can clean it fully assembled with out risk of getting sand in every part - because the dry ice pellets just evaporate. This also removes under coating instantly as it both freezes and abrades causing the stuff to get brittle and then blasted off.

Sometimes, sand blasting is not an option. Where I live right now in LA, there is now way I could sand blast out in my driveway. So, even though I have a bare frame. I'll still be doing it the manual way vs. sandblasting. It takes a weekend to descale a frame and another to paint it. Not a big deal. If the truck was not torn down, there is no way I could tear down to a bare frame and reassemble it in a weekend just to sand blast. Heck, on one project I realized that it was an hour's drive to the sand blaster. So, a total of four hours in the drivers seatto drop off and pickup, five or six hours if I counted time spent there sorting through stuff and waiting around. I decided that in that amount of time, I could descale half the frame or more and just did it myself. What did George Patton say? "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow." Sand blasting might be better if you have more time and space but it can also be a pain in the $%*!

I used to have two giant air compressors and a TIP sand blaster. Not any more, too much of a mess, too much time spend cleaning up both the work area and th parts. Now, I have it all done by someone else and sold off all of that gear.

With a needle scaler and a variable speed grinder, you can move pretty fast. If the paint looks great after 7+ years, I think this method is fine.

-Stumbaugh

 

[1973Guppie]

is the frame connected to the truck?, if you are going to go this far, pull the frame from the truck, otherwise just spot prep with wire wheel and rattle can while on truck.

if off the truck:, some good advice above, but a little too much tech than necessary, strip the frame down as much as possible with a grinder and cup wire brush, sand the frame with some foam sanding pads, powerwash, tsp, metalready or phosphoric acid wash, and then paint. this is the process I used and some pics are below in my 55 build thread of the way the frame came out so you can see. Good luck.

Noah

 

[Coolerman]

What I meant was to take the frame to a blaster and have it done.

I agree it makes a horrible mess and the neighbors don't much care for it either! My wife bitched for days cause the sand got into her flowers and shrubs then into her hair when she worked in them.

That Dry Ice method is slick but do you think it would cut heavy rust from a frame? I have never seen it done...

 

[kulangot]

i some good advice above, but a little too much tech than necessary

Noah

Noah,

If you lived in the harsh North East, you would not think is "a little too much tech than necessary". You can loose your truck in a few winters with out a painted frame. Here in LA I see unrestored trucks from the 70's with original paint on the frame. Quality of restoration is significantly less important in the desert than it is back east. I see the same apathy in the construction of houses here in So Cal. Stuff that is fine here would never work where Yankees live.

I've also seen POR paint jobs fail in a year and Rustoleum jobs lasts ten+ years with good prep. Just like with welding, prep is everything and there is no being too careful about it unless you do hack work. Same with any trade.

Back east, I've seen clean rust free frames get rusted to the point of being covered in scale so big you can pick off a silver dollar sized piece in just a few years and put a pick hammer through in spots (from snow wheeling and salted roads) I'm guess in San Diego that does not happen. I know a guy who's lost three mini trucks in ten years to this while his buddy still has the same one and keeps after the paint. A can of WD40 on the frame every few months goes a long way to stave off rust.


-Stumbaugh

 

[kulangot]

What I meant was to take the frame to a blaster and have it done.

I agree it makes a horrible mess and the neighbors don't much care for it either! My wife bitched for days cause the sand got into her flowers and shrubs then into her hair when she worked in them.

That Dry Ice method is slick but do you think it would cut heavy rust from a frame? I have never seen it done...

We are on the same page.

My neighbors were giving me the look of death when I was blasting and they are Quakers. If you can get a Quaker that mad at you, you must be being a jackass. Even the cows and horses where uneasy about it.

The dry ice won't be as aggressive as sand or other media but it's gets it clean enough to paint - it wont' get to clean white metal but it will remove scale so you can POR or paint with your choice of paint. The military is using this to strip the paint off airplanes. It's awesome at removing undercoating - something sand will not always do. Especially the crappy tar based aftermarket stuff.

-Stumbaugh

 

[1973Guppie]

Noah,

If you lived in the harsh North East, you would not think is "a little too much tech than necessary". You can loose your truck in a few winters with out a painted frame. Here in LA I see unrestored trucks from the 70's with original paint on the frame. Quality of restoration is significantly less important in the desert than it is back east. I see the same apathy in the construction of houses here in So Cal. Stuff that is fine here would never work where Yankees live.

I've also seen POR paint jobs fail in a year and Rustoleum jobs lasts ten+ years with good prep. Just like with welding, prep is everything and there is no being too careful about it unless you do hack work. Same with any trade.

Back east, I've seen clean rust free frames get rusted to the point of being covered in scale so big you can pick off a silver dollar sized piece in just a few years and put a pick hammer through in spots (from snow wheeling and salted roads) I'm guess in San Diego that does not happen. I know a guy who's lost three mini trucks in ten years to this while his buddy still has the same one and keeps after the paint. A can of WD40 on the frame every few months goes a long way to stave off rust.


-Stumbaugh

of course common sense comes into play here and you have to take the necessary steps for the resto to hold up to the elements according to where you live, no argument there, my point was to show that you CAN get a decent result with basic tools and some good paint. How long it lasts depends on many factors (use, area you live, maintenance, etc).

Noah

 

[Bubblee]

WOW great responses! Thanks everyone!

My main question is how clean is clean? I have nice shinny metal in places that looks ok, but when I wet that part i see dark sprinkled spots or ruts in metal that I assume are still rust. Should I be anal and get those out of there, or is that clean enough for POR?

Thanks again!!

 

[kulangot]

WOW great responses! Thanks everyone!

My main question is how clean is clean? I have nice shinny metal in places that looks ok, but when I wet that part i see dark sprinkled spots or ruts in metal that I assume are still rust. Should I be anal and get those out of there, or is that clean enough for POR?

Thanks again!!

You don't want the shiny spots for POR, it won't stick to those areas. Check their instructions out, they say not to use power tools.

You just need to remove all of the loose scale and rust to the point that you can't easily remove any more with a hand held wire brush. There will still be some black.

Easy solution, just let a bit rust build up again and the re-prep it. POR needs some "tooth" for it to stick. Prepped rusty areas or sand blasted vs. new steel or steel polished by a wire wheel on a grinder is not going to have good adhesion. I've actually seen it peel off. You could also scuff with a 36g sanding disc.

-Stumbaugh

 

[Bubblee]

Thanks!!

 

[kulangot]

of course common sense comes into play here and you have to take the necessary steps for the resto to hold up to the elements according to where you live, no argument there, my point was to show that you CAN get a decent result with basic tools and some good paint. How long it lasts depends on many factors (use, area you live, maintenance, etc).

Noah

I fully agree with that, but I also try to do stuff the best I can, especially if it's just a little more work. No no need to go overboard but also no need to cut corners. That's were I was coming from when I said no need to sand blast, just do a good a really good prep over what you have. Prep is probably more important than the quality of the paint.

If you read the POR instructions, they make it seem really complicated and frankly it is if you follow their instructions to a T. That's why I prefer Eastwood's rust encapsulator and or Hammerite. More user friendly, faster and easier. Not to knock POR, great stuff but lots of different steps and lots of prep work.

Off the subject, but I just bought a frame down in San Diego, the guy had it leaning on a fence for years and it looks mint. Got to love the weather around here for being good for cars. What did I hear? All dust and no rust?

-Stumbaugh

 

[Bubblee]

Can I go ahead and remove the rivets? It would ease in cleaning and in sealing but how do I rivet it back? Should I use bolts?

Also should I separate the C channels to clean the inside?

Sorry for all these questions but I want to do this job once and right, so I wont have to re do it.

BTW I live in CT and Im sure they still use salt / brine here. And the tub is pretty much off only the engine and firewall remain.

Thanks

 

[kulangot]

Can I go ahead and remove the rivets? It would ease in cleaning and in sealing but how do I rivet it back? Should I use bolts?

Also should I separate the C channels to clean the inside?

Sorry for all these questions but I want to do this job once and right, so I wont have to re do it.

BTW I live in CT and Im sure they still use salt / brine here. And the tub is pretty much off only the engine and firewall remain.

Thanks

NO!

Don't do that. That's waaay too much work. If you want to get hard core, have the frame galvanized. If you go this route, make sure you put sacrificial bolts into all of the holes or you'll have to spend a lot of time running taps through them. If you stick some cheap fasteners into the holes before the galvanizing, you can just back them out afterwards. This also works great for painting and powdercoating. A guy did a great write up in the TLCA years ago about this. I think it was Rob Mullins the FJ40 FAQ guy.

A galvanized frame and an Aqualu tub and you'd have a truck that can survive for years in New England.

I have never gone so far to galvanize, but I have considered it as I love to drive around in the snow. Even though I am in So Cal right now, I'll be back east one day.

-Stumbaugh

 

[avgas]

Rust Bullet (www.rustbullet.com) works really good over rust, adheres much better to metal than por15 does, the finish is also very durable. I redid the entire inside of the tub on the blazer I used to have, with nothing else on top of the rustbullet, at no point did any of the rustbullet wear off, after many wheeling trips (over the course of a few years) with sand and mud grinding into it under peoples feet. I just did the frame with it on my 65 build. The rougher(rustier) the surface is, the better it adheres.

 

[Coolerman]

Just finished this frame about a month ago. Sand blasted in the driveway then two coats of Silver Rust Bullet. I plan on leaving it silver

 

[Bubblee]

^ Mmmmm that looks purrrrty! LOL

Seriously, it looks very nice... I assume using rust bullet doesnt require to ruff up the frame as much as POR does?

What do you guys do in regards to the rust sandwiched between the C channels?

Sorry about all these questions, but as I said, just like evryone else I wanna do it once and right and not 100 times half-A$$ed

Keep on truckin'