All right guys, I thought I was going to go hold off on any resto work and just go 4 wheeling as soon as I got this Crew Cab but now that I've got the bed off and dropped the gas tank to replace the rear spring hangars I've decided to go ahead and tackle the frame rust since I've gone this far. It has a couple of pretty bad spots with pitting but mostly a solid layer of surface rust that's threating to get worse. I've also done a little grinding of the surface to get some of the worse spots that were flaking so I have a combo of bare metal and rust. What would you do to preserve it if it was your frame?

Please post your experience with Rust encapsulators, rustoleum, paint, Por 15, etc.

Sandblast or not, etc.

Thanks

 

I'll bump this to the top so people speak up.

I've no experience with any but I'm gonna need it in the near future. Gotta love New York.

Your best bet might be to just run a search on "rust".

 

I haven't used the others, but I've used POR-15 quite a bit and really had great results with it. I did a body off resto on two 74 Blazers. I took everything down to the frame and then sandblasted each frame. I used their Marine Clean then their Metal Ready and then brushed on the POR-15. When I was done, it was unbelievably tough. In fact, I accidently painted over a section where I needed to weld in a steering box brace. I tried MEK, Acetone, and Paint Thinner to get it off to no avail. I then tried a wire wheel, wire brush, and sandpaper but no luck. I had to take a grinder to the paint to get it off where I needed to weld. I thought it was tougher than powdercoat.

Since then I have used it on my D60 and a Corp14ff on a 76 Blazer and it is still intact after wheeling the heck out of the thing. I will be using it when I pick up a 78 F-150 and selling my Blazer shortly.

 

There's also a product called Chassis Saver...I think I'm going to go with this method as I don't have a garage.

 

Last year I wire wheeled my 76's frame after I pulled the bed, used rustoleum rusty metal primer and then used a few coats of rustoleum stops rust paint. It's held up great through the year and even through the winter. The only place I see rust is on the leaf springs where they rub but that would happen no matter what. At this point I have bought an 80 gallon compressor and pressure blaster and recently blasted an equipment trailer with play sand. I will never wire wheel or grind again! blasting is the way to go even if you have to have someone else do it. I still used rustoleum stops rust since its cheap and seems to work well. I've used rust products before with varied success but nothing beats blasting.