If you own a truck and live in the rust belt.

cowman

cowman

Final Approach
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Cowman
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Here’s your motivation to go treat your rocker panels, fenders, and cab corners with some kind of corrosion inhibitor. This is a 2012 with less than 100,000 miles on it and we absolutely made an effort to run it through the car wash after use on salted roads.
 
Hard to see in the photos but the drivers side was significantly worse. I had to weld in new metal along the bottom edge just to have something to attach the new rocker panels to…. And there was rot going way up the rear corner of the cab… a piece of the old rocker is now welded in there but it’s coming along.


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I wonder how much the treatments actually delay the inevitable. My old F-150 was probably just as bad if not worse when I traded it in for a new F-150. I'm curious to see how the new aluminum body ones fair in a corrosive environment.
 
Stop running it through the carwash in the winter. All that salt just gets jammed up into the drain holes and any crevice in the metal it can find and stays there. I live in the rusty northeast in a state that sprays the road with rust forming nasty chemicals every time there is even a hint of snow or ice coming and my 2010 yukon with 200k has almost no rust on the body and only surface rust on the frame. It will occasionally get washed in the winter but some of the worst cars with rust around here are those that are hitting the car wash up every week all winter long. If I had a newer vehicle I might try spraying the underside down with fluid film but again, if you are constantly washing all winter it’s just going to quickly wear off.
 
kmacht said:
Stop running it through the carwash in the winter. All that salt just gets jammed up into the drain holes and any crevice in the metal it can find and stays there. I live in the rusty northeast in a state that sprays the road with rust forming nasty chemicals every time there is even a hint of snow or ice coming and my 2010 yukon with 200k has almost no rust on the body and only surface rust on the frame. It will occasionally get washed in the winter but some of the worst cars with rust around here are those that are hitting the car wash up every week all winter long. If I had a newer vehicle I might try spraying the underside down with fluid film but again, if you are constantly washing all winter it’s just going to quickly wear off.
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Give it a few more years. my Yukon XL 2002 is accelerating fast. It was fine till the last few years. It's my tool truck and sits....but is quickly decaying
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
Give it a few more years. my Yukon XL 2002 is accelerating fast. It was fine till the last few years. It's my tool truck and sits....but is quickly decaying
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We had a 2002 Yukon xl before this one. If you look at the two model years you will see the rockers aren’t as exposed so they don’t tend to rust out as fast on the 2010. The bottom of the door mostly covers and protects them. I check the frame and anything structural or suspension related pretty regularly as we tow horses with it every week so I’m pretty confident the 2010 has already another 5 or 6 years left. I will agree though that our 2002 did deteriorate pretty rapidly. We got rid of it as soon on as I started getting uncomfortable of what was left of the frame. The one thing I did love on the 2002 was it had the 5.3 engine without displacement on demand. I have had to rebuild the engine twice on the 2010 because of that crappy lifter design. The last time I did a new cam and full delete. Don’t buy a newer Yukon that still has DOD.
 
Soak it with Fluid Film. Heard mixed reviews about those black underbody coatings. Some of them trap moisture inside and speed up corrosion.
 
That black crud is almost certainly going to block the drain holes.
 
I worry about the water used in automatic car washes. Ours is recycled because of our aridity, no way they can filter salt.
Of course salt is not a huge problem where I am; but possibly in other areas it is...and they recycle?
 
Anyway you look t it, its SAD! Do car mfg's subsidize the road salt they use? It's bad here when they started using mag chloride. Before they used gravel. It was bad, sand blasting your car then hitting it with salt water. Sad for sure.
 
Oldmanb777 said:
Anyway you look t it, its SAD! Do car mfg's subsidize the road salt they use? It's bad here when they started using mag chloride. Before they used gravel. It was bad, sand blasting your car then hitting it with salt water. Sad for sure.
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Here in Saskatchewan they often use potash instead of salt. Big potash mines here. Potash eats metal too.
 
Can you believe this CyberTruck is only a few months old?!?

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(Seriously - it’s a wrap!)
 
Owned a lot of trucks since the late 70s. The issue is poor quality components. You can put all the prevention treatments you like on the metal, but it will rust anyway on model years the manufacturer cuts corners on quality.
 
I live in the dry desert, what is this rust y'all speak of.?? :lol:

Seriously, there is not one speck of rust on any of my vehicles.
 
Finally got around to finishing it, coated the new rockers in bed liner. Now wondering if I should spray the lower edges of the doors/fender and bed to match or just say good enuf IMG_0089.jpeg
 
midwestpa24 said:
I wonder how much the treatments actually delay the inevitable. My old F-150 was probably just as bad if not worse when I traded it in for a new F-150. I'm curious to see how the new aluminum body ones fair in a corrosive environment.
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Body on my 16 F150 is fine. Spots of surface rust on the steel frame underneath.

Got tired of watching all my vehicles disappear from the rockers up, so I waited for the 2nd year of aluminum bodies and 150k later, no regrets.

My 2005 Saabaru has lost substantial chunks of metal to the rust monster.
 
Rust is the bane of my existence. I started hot-dip galvanizing everything I could, and then encasing it in a sarcophagus of Fluid Film upon reassembly - I buy it by the bucket and apply it with a schutz gun; the aerosol can is a toy. 3M Cavity Wax is pretty good, too, and should be applied with the long straw-like applicator to the insides of body panels.

This was one of my more amibitious galvanizing projects. I think I finally found a way to keep a Tacoma intact in the rust belt:

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That continues to be one of the most amazing - and useful - automotive projects that I've ever seen.

Did you have to drill extra holes in the frame for the galvanizer to accept it?
 
I guess I shouldn't show you any of my other automotive projects, then. :biggrin:

Didn't have to drill any additional holes in it, plenty of vent and drain holes present in the original design. I did, however, opt to plate both sides of the open C-channel section with 3/16 steel prior to galvanizing. Kind of a common thing to do in order to beef up these trucks' frames, and welding anything to galvanized steel sucks. You have to drill and chase every threaded hole prior to assembly, as everything is filled with zinc.

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Zeldman said:
I live in the dry desert, what is this rust y'all speak of.?? :lol:

Seriously, there is not one speck of rust on any of my vehicles.
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I live in Florida and there is not a speck of rust on either of mine, both GM vehicles. One 8 yrs old, one 10 yrs old.
Of course though, I never drive on the beach even though it is only about 2 miles away. I park off beach and walk.
 
cowman said:
Finally got around to finishing it, coated the new rockers in bed liner. Now wondering if I should spray the lower edges of the doors/fender and bed to match or just say good enuf View attachment 129227
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Are you coating inside the rockers with "inside the frame" paint? Adding any fluid film in there? I'll be doing that to my rigs as extra protection, just spend entirely too much money on new sheet metal!
 
Huh. My 2014 Toyota Tacoma never got any car washes during the winter and is not rusting severely. Only a little bit on the rims… I drive it every day.
 
MIFlyer said:
Are you coating inside the rockers with "inside the frame" paint? Adding any fluid film in there? I'll be doing that to my rigs as extra protection, just spend entirely too much money on new sheet metal!
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Both.
 
cowman said:
Finally got around to finishing it, coated the new rockers in bed liner. Now wondering if I should spray the lower edges of the doors/fender and bed to match or just say good enuf View attachment 129227
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That's impressive. I've got a Suburban for you to work on next....
 
Definitely lack of factory love. I had two Saabs in the past in Michigan, didn’t take care of them rust-wise at all. Both had two small spots of rust on a wheel well when I got rid of them at 275k and 210k. Working on em- they looked untouched underneath and not a single bolt head was badly rusted. Never needed heat for a single bolt on either. Their metal work was impressive.

I’ve considered coating my newer Subaru w boiled linseed oil underneath
 
Going to be doing the same thing on a 99 Silverado soon. Now that it's in Maryland, probably needs to be sooner rather than later.
 
This tool I made is a great way to load a schutz gun with Fluid Film, for what it's worth. It agitates the product and reduces its viscosity while it fills the bottle. I put some details in the video description; hope this helps somebody.
 
When I was looking to start doing my truck a couple years ago....Blaster Surface Shield seemed best in longevity reviews form some testers on the net...for whatever that's worth. It does spray nice and seems to creep well and my Silverado still has a lot of it after a winter+ of driving. I will recoat this fall, but some people say they can get 2 winters out of an application. It is Lanolin based like Fluid film, but with some additives
 
Peterbilt, KW and a few others have always made aluminum cabs. Lasted forever. I don’t know why it has taken so long for small trucks to follow suit.
 
Eric Brunelle said:
Peterbilt, KW and a few others have always made aluminum cabs. Lasted forever. I don’t know why it has taken so long for small trucks to follow suit.
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Well, the F-150 went to an aluminum cab/bed for the 2015+ trucks I believe. GM even ran a series of advertisements making fun of their aluminum bed and how it wasn't as "durable" . . . then GM started using aluminum just like Ford a few years later, lol.
 
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