Newbie here to salted roads and undercarriage rust, used to living in the dry desert of the Southwest! After encountering heavily salted highway on the I70 traveling to CO, I developed some unsightly rust spots on the leaf springs and rear diff after not washing the truck in 3 weeks. I didn't take a pic of the before, but the leaf springs were surprisingly rusted in spots all over. I picked up a can of Rust-Oleum Rust Reformer...a couple coats later and we are back to new. Not sure how long it will last, but I'm happy with the results. The coating is paintable, though I'll leave the matte black finish and see how it holds up. Will need to stay on top of undercarriage washes going forward!

 

Lol, my entire red truck is white along with the undercarriage for about a month now as the temp are in the teens and 20s all month.. Welcome to salted roads....

 

I used rusty metal primer and then flat black Rustoleum to spot treat my 2017 almost two years ago. It stopped the rust, even with all of the salt. My truck is a dually and has never been through a car wash, so it's belly stays salty all winter.

 

Throw some fluid film on the leaf springs once a year before winter. They will last forever. Fluid film and krown from what I read are both great at rust prevention. Honestly I had 2 previous fords that I never touched with rust prevention and the leaf springs were the LAST thing that I worried about as the body and engines were rusting through lol

 

Had to laugh at this post. If people who live on the NY/Canada border where I do worried about this stuff, we'd just have to leave our trucks inside from November to April and have a winter rat or Uber everyplace. Non issue to me.

 

Check out this thread
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...oil-spray.html
After applying Fluid Film/Rustoleum/paint or whatever....choose a good Bourbon/cigar/pipe....put on good music....look at truck and relax. Don't sweat the small stuff.

 

As it is, my truck is likely to outlive me by a good margin. I am doing good to keep the top side reasonably clean!
You are to be congratulated and admired for your energy and attention to detail.

 

Here I was proud because I washed my new truck once in 3 months.

I admire your handy work. It looks nice. If you ever need some practice let me know, my truck is in the driveway.

 

I usually wash my truck once a week, including the under-body, and I live in Florida :P . But, I also generally off-road once a week so it is kinda necessary :P .

But yeah, check out that thread. I am moving to New Mexico this year, and expect to travel much of the West, so it will definitely be exposed to snow. I personally am a fan of the "old motor oil in a pressure sprayer" trick.

I do much of my own maintenance and mods, and having experienced the raw ***-pain of loosening (and breaking) rusted hardware on a Northern truck, I never want to deal with that again.

 

Rust can only be "covered" for a short time. It will return as the corrosion continues to eat the base metal and then comes back. Unfortunately, when it starts you are done unless you physically remove all of the corrosion and re paint or coat with a protective coating. Where you are it is a no win situation so you had better keep the paint handy and wash often so you will at least not see it.

 

I coat the entire underside of my trucks in oil under coat. I probably use at least a gallon per vehicle, covering everything you can see (and things you can't).

I make sure to oil the inside of the frame, rockers, radiator support, and in the bed sides. It really does save your vehicles.

 

Shows how bad rust can get without washing salt off.

 

Thanks for that video. I sent a link to it to my wife. Will it convince her to wash her car after a snowstorm? I hope so.

 

Wonder if that frame rot was inside out or outside in?

 

Nice. Did you wire brush any rust off first or just spray and go?