Hello all, I have a few questions. I have the bed and cab off the frame. In doing the frame, did you guys take the shock towers off ????? Is it necessary to take the towers and cross members off and reinstall with new hardware. If you take the cross members off do you risk alignment or squarenes of the frame??? Also on the front cab mounts (I'm replacing the floor pans) what is the best way to clean the rust up on the inside of the mount. Bad surface rust but not rusted through. What can I use to treat and seal the inside of the front cab mount???
Thanks Pat

 

Personally I wouldn't take the cross members out unless they were damaged. If you have some major rust going on then I would replace the main ones and then sandblast, prime and use a high quality epoxy paint and seal it all up. Shock towers I would remove to get behind the though. Not really a difficult thing to do and you can get behind them where rust like to build up. Put some pictures up so we can see what you've got and your progress.

 

Hmm, not sure what you are working on but I took my shock towers off mine to clean repaint and install some headers. With respect to cross members, you might run some risk of getting things misaligned. I tried to remove the cross member underneath my transfer case but guess what - it does not come out!!! Arg, real pain and don't understand why it was designed like that... but that is another matter.

On the mounts, if they are not rusted real thin, then clean up with wire brush or blast is a good idea. After lots of degreasing and washing, I treated mine with POR-15, then put on a top coat of glossy enamel. The POR will fade out when exposed to sunlight.

 

2x on the por-15. I will me voting my complete Supercab frame in it

 

I took everything that could be unbolted from the frame off. Some people take it as far as removing riveted items, but I didn't feel the need.

 

I removed cross members,cleaned the hell out of everything,75 f250 4x4.On T/C grinded rivets and took a maul and knocked the member out.Allowed me to clean frame and member real good.Not a big deal unless your in a hurry.My frame is real clean to my specs.

 

x3 for POR-15. got to have a lot of time tho and a nice weekend to do it. need to use both the clean and metal prep. also buy a foam roller, the foam brushes fall apart and hold a lot of paint in them. then i used the POR brand primer and gloss, both were rattle can. check everything before you paint. i didn't notice till after i had the entire truck back together that my rear leaf shackle had wore an egg shape into the bracket.

my has been coated for 2 years now and the only place it didn't stick was under the engine cross member, it must of still had some oil soaked in. but the paint that did stick, stood up to being soaked with brake cleaner for a few days. were as on the fenders if i let the brake cleaner sit for a min as i grabbed a towel to wipe it up it would take off the paint to bare metal.

short story: take your time, prep prep prep, and it'll all be fine. put in the time and it'll be pay you back