Pitted Frame, Send It?

I get a grinder, attach a metal brush to it, clean trouble spots and paint over. Do it every summer or two

 

You could put a golve in it. I did on my Jimmy.

Made me feel better, but that was probably all it did

 

Doubt it's near as bad as it looks once it's cleaned up.

 

Under the 5th wheel is always a bad spot, and I've seen frame rails crack under the 5th wheel. If ambitious,, I'd run a U channel inside the current frame rail under the 5th wheel,aka, double frame, kind of. Rusty frame rails are a concern, but I was told, if the top and bottom are okay, the side can get pretty rusty before failing. Coming from the Badger, almost every older truck I drove had those rust "tumors".

 

Can't say for sure without seeing it but pitted frames are very normal in the rust belt.

 

I've seen and driven trucks, that when the 5th wheel was removed, the frame sagged. Sometimes the 5th wheel was holding it together

 

Usually in front of fifth wheel is where I’ve seen the Pete’s rot out. Sherwin Williams has a product called Frame Saver. Others are similar. Some stay black, some fade, but can be painted. Most can be applied with a brush, or thinned and sprayed
. Other products available similar to the very expensive por-13 that allow leaving stable rust in place. Do some research. Lot of options. They’re all different, some combination of paint, rust converter, or epoxy paint.

 

Got quite a bit of rust and pitting on my 2002 Century. This mechanic I go to, who's a real guru, told me scrape off rust, and don't paint, unless your sure the paint job won't eventually let moisture behind it. That's hard because you really got to to a good job getting all the rust off. Maybe Frame Saver works-don't really know. I've just cleaned flaky rust off every 1-2 years for the last 12 years and it really hasn't gotten much worse at all. But I live and run in the dry climate if the mountain West. If you want to keep it looking as good as new-and it lasts- you can have it professionally stripped down with a glass/ sand blaster and then paint. That mechanics son bought a underwater blaster used for ship welding, and did a resto project and it looked great throughout the job, and when it was done. He used a median that only took the rust off and didn't go into metal. Don't remember what median. That was 10-15 years ago.