Sand Salt and moisture

[NCFJ]

Hey guys and girls. It is that time of year that plans for STR are brewing and it just conflicts the hell out of me. I would love to go for 4 days or so but I can not bring myself to subject any vehicle I own to driving on the beach. I lived in a salt air and sand environment for ten years on a coral island with lots of natural and trucked in sand. The problem is it gets everywhere and no matter how hard you try you cant get it out of everywhere.

I did not want to post this in the STR thread and be Debbie Downer. I took a pound and a half or so of sand, enough to fill a kids beach bucket out of the current 62 I am working on and it had this what is shown in the photos below. Best I can tell you is to soak the underside of your rig with something like Fluid Film before you go. Fill all the seams. pull the trim and carpet and vacuum the hell out of it when you get back. I put a thin layer of fiberglass on the inner and outer tub of my CJ7 when I lived in the Keys.

 

[izzyandsue]

For the first problem you posted, I found out a loofa works great at getting the sand out of the cracks! Joking aside, there's a deadly word in the Caribbean, salitre, that salty beach air that gets into everything, and will eventually eat up any car but a corvette. Growing up there, I would spent the summer scraping iron and steel fences and repriming repaintng with oil paints. And it wouldn't last 18 months!

 

[NCFJ]

You betcha, I had one house between my place and the gulf, he was 70' away. All the Simpson connectors under his house were rusted through, mine were about 20% gone. 10 years. Same deal with oil paint. I bought Ospho by the gallon and used it in a pump sprayer. It slowed things down but never stopped it.

 

[izzyandsue]

Miami beach the problem wasn't the sand on the beach, it was the discarded needles in the sand. Used to be drugs 40 years ago, now is Botox! I stay away from long stays in salitre. But do want to go to Portsmouth Island again....

 

[Roxx]

My 62 was eaten up by the salitre. Nothing i could do about it. We had 52 weekend of sun and we always were at the beach for 53. After i left my brother inherited it and he drove it for another 4 yrs. i remember that i had plastic over the wheel wells for the mud not to spray in the cabin. That poor truck was abused. I got it when i was 15yrs old from my mom.

 

[NCFJ]

I put a lawn sprinkler under my trucks and Jeep a couple times a month kept them washed. You still had a never ending fight on your hands. I don't miss it. It's mild here.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

For a once in a while trip, I don't think you need to coat the underside with Fluid Film. It's super messy and makes working underneath a very dirty ordeal unless you pressure wash it all off.

A thorough cleaning after a beach trip is highly recommended though.

 

[KevinNY]

You Southern Boys make me chuckle when you talk about salt.

 

[NCFJ]

LOL you have no idea how funny that really is. Everyone that has commented here is a transplant.

 

[KevinNY]

That salt air is a different beast, I know. Road salt at least stays mostly on the outside.

 

[izzyandsue]

One of the great moments at the Xerox plant in Webster (right off the lake) was when the plant didn't get 28" of snow (shut down point), but Wayne County next door where most of the work force lived got 29 or 30", and that sheriff declared state of emergency, no driving unless you are an official vehicle. Then the workforce would get their pay reduced for not showing up, or risk getting ticketed. Either way, them snow plows would be spitting tons of gravel/sand/rock salt out the back, ensuring your paint and windshield got properly damaged.

You guys see the salt mine rescue yesterday in Lansing, NY? That's right next to Ithaca, my old school town. elevator broke and they got stranded overnight in the mine.

 

[NCFJ]

My father used a pump up bug sprayer to pump drain oil from our cars up under the entire underside of the car. Once just before winter and once about mid way through. It helped because we never had rust issues like some people that lived around us did.

I always had 4x4 pickups so getting around in the snow was normal.

 

[roadstr6]

My father used a pump up bug sprayer to pump drain oil from our cars up under the entire underside of the car. Once just before winter and once about mid way through. It helped because we never had rust issues like some people that lived around us did.

I always had 4x4 pickups so getting around in the snow was normal.

I know this method works based on the number of British cars I have wrenched on over the years. The numerous oil leaks make for great rustproofing underneath.

 

[RedHeadedStepChild]

I used to get regular hot oil undercoating treatments on the 4Runner. It slows things down, but there is a limit. 7 months of continuous wet grit blasting with rock salt WILL defeat it.

 

[NCFJ]

It is literally a war with rust if you live in the rust belt or close to a body of salt water. Keeping the top of my table saw rust free when I lived in the Keys was near impossible. I kept it soaked in oil and had to clean it to use it. My tool boxes always had a film of WD40. The difference between my steel boat trailer and my aluminum was night and day. I had too replace leaf springs on the steel trailer at about 7 years.