Rust ?

I’ll tell you what when I was looking for a used preemission truck couple years ago some of the Rusty Krap, espexially if it was a sought after Pete that was getting dumped woke me up.

 

Too late but there are a few chassis paints on the market that are very durable and can be sprayed or brushed on. If you decide to sandblast on your own later 18cfm compressor and a $100 pressure pot. Blasting sand with water would be most efficient/fast on a frame

 

FL fleet trucks never have good chassis paint. Only needs to last 3 years till trade-in. One reason why they are cheaper new than the rest. Most of the time if the frame isn’t ordered in any color other than standard black they dont add any paint over the pre-painted vendor coatings.

On a positive note the light rust shown in those pics shows that the truck was kept clean and leak free well enough to not let the rust preventative layer of crusty grease and oil build up.

 

When you do a frame take the wheels off and do it right or have someone blast it with the wheels off.

Also fluid film before every winter is your new best friend. Do not wash the truck/pressure wash anything you sprayed until winter is over.

Also personally I would avoid truck washes. Whatever they use dulls everything including frame paint. Personally I think it makes things worse. Wash your rig yourself if you can. Also gives you some relaxation and let’s you look over everything while you’re doing it.

If you are painting it yourself and it’s easy to do you’ll need a supplied air hood. Look on eBay there is a great one sold I have it that works as good as anything costing much more just it’s not certified because the testing costs a fortune. Company is out of CT I believe. New England for sure. Real automotive paint is nasty stuff for your lungs and even skin so a respirator alone spraying in shorts won’t do. Next go to harbor freight and buy a couple of their purple sprayers. Work fantastic and so cheap when on sale you can just toss them when finished or clean them - that’s easy to do.

Take pride in your ride and in a job well done! Bonus! Save yourself hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Most anything you can pay someone to do you can do. Though sometimes you can’t beat someone who does only one thing for a living like sandblasting. Also time is money. Get it done and get going again. Figure it out. If it’s cheaper to pay someone because they can work faster meaning you’ll lose less money do that.

 

We'd wash the iron every weekend. Inside the rails, crossmembers, diff housings, suspension pedestals etc. Have a little surface rust in the spring but never big flakes or chunks. Gotta keep that salt and whatever else they put on roads off the truck. When it sits there and builds up all winter is when the damage starts.