I swear by Kroil but the stuff you're mixing up is by far the best.

Sorry to hear of your bad experience Matt. It will get better. May hurt the bank a bit but you'll get there. This is one of the reasons I dropped mine off today to have the springs done. Not a job I wanted to attack myself.

Hope to hear good things soon.

 

Now I see the problem, you are doing this backwards! Sposed to live in Ohio and buy trucks from TX! How in the world did you end up with an Ohio truck?

 

I bought it when I was still active duty up in Washington state. At the time, it didn't appear to have any rust on the bottom - just some under the left rear passenger window and under the hood insulation. Since then, the undercoating that was sprayed before I bought it (should have been a red flag, still kicking myself for it) covered everything else up. I did used to go off-roading and act as a recovery vehicle for my friends' Jeeps - hence my old mud tires and crappy wheels. I rapidly learned that mud destroys a vehicle, especially axle seals, bearings, and u-joints. Which is why when I went to my current 18's I put AT's on it, to keep myself from being tempted to play. So some of the rust is my own doing, but a lot of it was pre-existing and just hidden quite well.

As it sits now, I have two fist sized exfoliation rust holes underneath that need replacing, the rear of the driver rocker cover panel, the front passenger door and the rear driver side passenger door need fixing. The doors I'm just going to find a parts Ex in matching color and trim and swap doors entirely... it's just cheaper. The undercarriage can get easy cut and weld patches, then painted or coated to inhibit new corrosion. Doesn't have to be pretty underneath so long as it's gone.

I'm so deep into modifications on it that I can't justify starting over with a new rust free one - it's cheaper to kill the existing rust than it is to start from ground zero. Big sticks, built trans... those are the high dollar items. I'm also not in a position to buy a rust free and swap parts over before selling mine. I know it's history, I trust it. Although every time I ride with Razzi in his 6.0, that angry bark at full throttle is almost enough to tempt me into a 6'er. Almost.

 

Ahh, you can just feel the love pouring out of your last post! Much better than the first post on this thread.

It's brutal on vehicles around here. I have my dad's old truck (97 chebby) that I expect will one day break in half from rust. Spent it's life here in OH. No comparison to my 3 yr newer EX that lived it's life prior to me in GA and SC. Thus I park the EX all winter.

Good luck with the repairs and many happy miles when it's done.

 

Appreciate it bud, 265,000 miles so far and hoping for another quarter-mil on the ticker. I still plan on keeping it and the Chevelle until I have to bribe under the table to keep getting normal fuels