Frame rust removal

[the gimpey one]

Wanting to try and remove as much rust as I can. I can not afford to remove the body for a frame off restore. Was going to use my angle grinder and wire brush attachment and have it. What else could or should I do?


Planned on spray painting what I can as well. This truck will never be restored just trying to keep what I got. Attached is the only pic I have at the moment. Hoping to maybe replace rear quarters In 2023.

 

[cps432]

Wanting to try and remove as much rust as I can. I can not afford to remove the body for a frame off restore. Was going to use my angle grinder and wire brush attachment and have it. What else could or should I do?


Planned on spray painting what I can as well. This truck will never be restored just trying to keep what I got. Attached is the only pic I have at the moment. Hoping to maybe replace rear quarters In 2023.

View attachment 2745507

Go look on Eastwood’s website for rust treatment products. Do not wire wheel that off and spray krylon or rustoleum or it will be even worse next year. There are really great products to help you deal with that frame but you need to do your research to find out exactly what is going to work best for you. You’ll probably want a liquid rust converter and an epoxy/rust retarder paint. Again, Eastwood has it all.

 

[kevin in okinawa]

get after it with the grinder and wire wheel and brushes, then brush on the boiled linseed oil. I use boiled linseed oil as a rust prohibitor; a trick from the ratrod guys only draw back is it takes a few days to "cure/dry." You can paint it after, that's what I do. Works awesome too.

I've seen that fluid film is becoming popular, an annual treatment I believe.

 

[cps432]

get after it with the grinder and wire wheel and brushes, then brush on the boiled linseed oil. I use boiled linseed oil as a rust prohibitor; a trick from the ratrod guys only draw back is it takes a few days to "cure/dry." You can paint it after, that's what I do. Works awesome too.

I've seen that fluid film is becoming popular, an annual treatment I believe.

Linseed never really cures or dries. It’s always got a certain amount of tack to it and it will soften with heat. Even boiled linseed oil is this way with my experience in woodworking. I know the old ratrod guys used it back in the day but we’ve got much better products these days that actually treat the steel molecularly and prepare it to take modern epoxy paint with rust prohibitors built into the product.

The military used to finish walnut rifle stocks with linseed oil in wwi and at the start of wwii. They stopped using it because troops began having problems with the stocks becoming sticky in the middle of battle and they would attract dirt that would jam up the rifle and make maintenance a pita.

Granted, boiled linseed oil has removed the linolenic acid and added metal salts to aid in the cure time and make it harder than raw linseed. So... IF you’re going to go this route I would advise boiled linseed over raw linseed. Which is much more common. You’ll have to try hard to find raw linseed.

I still vote for Eastwood’s chemical preparations. It’s 2021 not 1921...

 

[g-man]

That surface rust does NOT look bad. Surface oxidation acts to preserve or keep more air from getting at the good metal underneath. It is in itself a coating that keeps oxygen and moisture away from the good metal under it. Besides this...a lot of rust issues happen from inside the boxed frame. Even your C channels look good. Leave it...find something more worthy of your time and effort.

 

[OSS]

You can do the whole frame by hand without power tools (grinder) but it takes a lot of work and time.
The best way to go about it if doing it by hand is work in small sections. It's less discouraging and you get to see progress. Maybe do four foot sections at a time.
You can start scraping it with a scraper and digging with chisels to get to shiny metal and use plenty of Ospho phosphoric acid as you wire brush the rust away with a toothbrush sized wire brush. It definitely takes some work, but I did my whole frame that way.
When I got it so everything was silver looking again, I went the boiled linseed undercoating route. On the last few coats I mixed in a little rustoleum Alkyd black paint to give the top coat a harder finish. Total coats was maybe 4 with the top coat. Brushed it on by hand. Requires about 4 days to cure before next coat. Next coat just gets slapped on top, no sanding between coats required. Seems to last forever. Easy to touch up if needed down the line

 

[MarkBC]

You can do the whole frame by hand without power tools (grinder) but it takes a lot of work and time.
The best way to go about it if doing it by hand is work in small sections. It's less discouraging and you get to see progress. Maybe do four foot sections at a time.
You can start scraping it with a scraper and digging with chisels to get to shiny metal and use plenty of Ospho phosphoric acid as you wire brush the rust away with a toothbrush sized wire brush. It definitely takes some work, but I did my whole frame that way.
When I got it so everything was silver looking again, I went the boiled linseed undercoating route. On the last few coats I mixed in a little rustoleum Alkyd black paint to give the top coat a harder finish. Total coats was maybe 4 with the top coat. Brushed it on by hand. Requires about 4 days to cure before next coat. Next coat just gets slapped on top, no sanding between coats required. Seems to last forever. Easy to touch up if needed down the line

I'm interested how paint can be applied to oil. All I ever learned was that you have to remove all traces of oil to get paint to stick.

 

[SHIfTHEAD]

That surface rust does NOT look bad. Surface oxidation acts to preserve or keep more air from getting at the good metal underneath. It is in itself a coating that keeps oxygen and moisture away from the good metal under it. Besides this...a lot of rust issues happen from inside the boxed frame. Even your C channels look good. Leave it...find something more worthy of your time and effort.

While this is true for Aluminum I don't believe that is the case for ferrous metals. The oxides behave very differently between the two, where Aluminum Oxide is so tightly bound to the surface that it prevents any further oxidation. However in the case of ferrous oxide, it flakes away from the metal and allows for further oxidation, in most case actually exacerbates the problem.

There are many rust convertors out there and that is the best route, IMHO. They almost all employ something like phosphoric acid to dissolve some of the ferrous oxide into solution and the other compounds in the covertor have a chemical reaction with the ferrous oxide and cures into a hard black epoxy. This is a very thin layer of protection, so I would put something on top of this a few days after it's cured. But you could just stop there as it will stop the rust in it's tracks. The key is that you need to just knock off the loose rust and leave some there. If it's shiny metal it won't work, it relies on some ferrous oxide to have the reaction.

 

[Seth S]

Pull the frame, sand blast it, have it hot dip galvanized. Don’t worry about it for the next 40 years

 

[cps432]

I'm interested how paint can be applied to oil. All I ever learned was that you have to remove all traces of oil to get paint to stick.

There are many different oils out there. Some of them are kind of a misnomer. Some of them don’t react to paint and lacquer the same. A single molecule of silicon from a furniture polish imbedded in the surface can ruin the lacquer finish on a table top restoration. If you mix 3 parts boiled linseed, mineral spirits, and polyurethane it creates a magnificent wipe on finish that soaks deep into the wood filling the pores eventually. You can build it up and use it as a stain and then spray lacquer straight over it. Chemistry.

Always look up the msds charts for the products you use. You’ll learn safety things you never knew and you’ll likely learn troubleshooting and suggested techniques for proper use.

 

[OSS]

Boiled linseed oil can be used as a thinner for alkyd based oil paints (Rustoleum brush on). It lengthens drying time and can help it level. If too much oil is mixed into the paint, it can wrinkle .
But -
If boiled linseed oil IS the coating and a little bit of black rustoleum Alkyd oil based paint is stirred into the oil, it gets a black pigment which is desirable on the frame and the final end product when it f I n a l l y cures looks a lot better and isn't tacky like straight linseed is.
But the best thing to do is try it on a scrap sample of metal - see if you like the end result. BLO takes a long time to cure - so that has to be taken into consideration.

 

[MB BeigeFJ60]

Pull the frame, sand blast it, have it hot dip galvanized. Don’t worry about it for the next 40 years

Hi Seth,
May I know which shop do you recommend to do that? Thank you.

 

[Seth S]

Hi Seth,
May I know which shop do you recommend to do that? Thank you.

Depends where you are located. For me there are a couple places near Boston that can galvanize a truck frame. Cost is around $1000 or more if they have to sandblast it.

as for stripping it… that’s up to you to do yourself or find someone local who can do it for you. I bought a used 80 chassis 2 years ago from a shop in Burlington Vermont. They had found a clean 80 chassis in colorado and had it galvanized out there and then shipped East for their customer.

 

[MB BeigeFJ60]

Depends where you are located. For me there are a couple places near Boston that can galvanize a truck frame. Cost is around $1000 or more if they have to sandblast it.

as for stripping it… that’s up to you to do yourself or find someone local who can do it for you. I bought a used 80 chassis 2 years ago from a shop in Burlington Vermont. They had found a clean 80 chassis in colorado and had it galvanized out there and then shipped East for their customer.

I meant to ask a shop that can remove the frame and send it for refinishing before reassembly. In east cost, if you are in VT.
P.S. I would drive to VT from DC and drink amazing beer there!

 

[SHIfTHEAD]

I meant to ask a shop that can remove the frame and send it for refinishing before reassembly. In east cost, if you are in VT.
P.S. I would drive to VT from DC and drink amazing beer there!

Dude this would cost a fortune. Not only do you have to remove the body from the frame (need a lift or a rotisserie) you have to remove all driveline (engine, trans, diffs), brake lines, fuel system, steering gearbox, bumpers, hitch(?) before the frame is even ready to be prepped. All that has to be stored somewhere while it's being prepped, sent out, wait, then when it returns rebuild the entire truck. So unless you have deep pockets I wouldn't consider this option. Plus the rust on the frame, from what I can see, isn't even bad. It looks like surface rust, which means it's just ugly but of no consequence really. If it bugs you enough get a wire brush out and knock off the loose stuff, of which will most be dirt anyway. Then coat it with something, like fluid film. This stuff will need to be reapplied every year or two as it can wash off. But you could do it yourself and you don't have to worry about what you get it on. I would recommend that you get something inside the frame rails if you are going to do this job. That and the shock tube are the most susceptible areas for real rust. Just spray a bunch inside both to really coat them inside. But again, stuff like boiled linseed oil, or just oil inside the frame rails will do the job too.

Galvanized frame story; I met a guy at Overland East last year who was making and selling Land Rover bits. He had his LR there as a demo and I noticed the frame was galvanized. He told me that in South Africa this is how LR made all their trucks. Not sure if they still do, but apparently if you were a glutton for punishment and wanted a LR, maybe get one from SA.

 

[cps432]

Dude this would cost a fortune. Not only do you have to remove the body from the frame (need a lift or a rotisserie) you have to remove all driveline (engine, trans, diffs), brake lines, fuel system, steering gearbox, bumpers, hitch(?) before the frame is even ready to be prepped. All that has to be stored somewhere while it's being prepped, sent out, wait, then when it returns rebuild the entire truck. So unless you have deep pockets I wouldn't consider this option. Plus the rust on the frame, from what I can see, isn't even bad. It looks like surface rust, which means it's just ugly but of no consequence really. If it bugs you enough get a wire brush out and knock off the loose stuff, of which will most be dirt anyway. Then coat it with something, like fluid film. This stuff will need to be reapplied every year or two as it can wash off. But you could do it yourself and you don't have to worry about what you get it on. I would recommend that you get something inside the frame rails if you are going to do this job. That and the shock tube are the most susceptible areas for real rust. Just spray a bunch inside both to really coat them inside. But again, stuff like boiled linseed oil, or just oil inside the frame rails will do the job too.

Galvanized frame story; I met a guy at Overland East last year who was making and selling Land Rover bits. He had his LR there as a demo and I noticed the frame was galvanized. He told me that in South Africa this is how LR made all their trucks. Not sure if they still do, but apparently if you were a glutton for punishment and wanted a LR, maybe get one from SA.

Some of those old LR have aluminum bodies We can dream can’t we???

 

[SHIfTHEAD]

Some of those old LR have aluminum bodies We can dream can’t we???

Indeed. The frame is the achilles heel of the Toyota. Also, I mentioned shock tube earlier...I'm still thinking of the 60 I'm working on, I don't even recall if the hundo has one or not.

 

[Seth S]

Some of those old LR have aluminum bodies We can dream can’t we???

All the series and defenders have aluminum bodies. But they still have steel bulkheads and chassis and they too rust. LR’s are just really good at looking good while actually being corrosion nightmares.

 

[Seth S]

Dude this would cost a fortune. Not only do you have to remove the body from the frame (need a lift or a rotisserie) you have to remove all driveline (engine, trans, diffs), brake lines, fuel system, steering gearbox, bumpers, hitch(?) before the frame is even ready to be prepped. All that has to be stored somewhere while it's being prepped, sent out, wait, then when it returns rebuild the entire truck. So unless you have deep pockets I wouldn't consider this option. Plus the rust on the frame, from what I can see, isn't even bad. It looks like surface rust, which means it's just ugly but of no consequence really. If it bugs you enough get a wire brush out and knock off the loose stuff, of which will most be dirt anyway. Then coat it with something, like fluid film. This stuff will need to be reapplied every year or two as it can wash off. But you could do it yourself and you don't have to worry about what you get it on. I would recommend that you get something inside the frame rails if you are going to do this job. That and the shock tube are the most susceptible areas for real rust. Just spray a bunch inside both to really coat them inside. But again, stuff like boiled linseed oil, or just oil inside the frame rails will do the job too.

Galvanized frame story; I met a guy at Overland East last year who was making and selling Land Rover bits. He had his LR there as a demo and I noticed the frame was galvanized. He told me that in South Africa this is how LR made all their trucks. Not sure if they still do, but apparently if you were a glutton for punishment and wanted a LR, maybe get one from SA.

Most of the replacement chassis for land rovers are galvanized. An 88” runs about $2500 while a 109” or 110” is in the $4k to $5k range.

 

[Seth S]

I meant to ask a shop that can remove the frame and send it for refinishing before reassembly. In east cost, if you are in VT.
P.S. I would drive to VT from DC and drink amazing beer there!

you could try these guys:

The Land Rover Restoration Experts at Performance Unlimited in Vermont

Land Rover Restoration focused on enhancing drivability and enjoyment, while increasing the durability and corrosion resistance, of your Land Rover vehicle.

www.performanceunlim.com

Maybe these guys:

The 4x4 Center - 4x4 & AWD Service, Vehicle Upgrades, Land Rover Restoration, and Training

The 4x4 Center provides world-class Land Rover Restoration and automotive repair services in Vermont, serving clients worldwide. Our expertise is 4x4s, and we service all your families vehicles.

www.the4x4center.com

the work to get the frame out and put it back is likely to defy the intent of your original post cost wise.