Undercarriage coating- anyone done it?

[HuntNFish]

As everyone knows, the New England winters and salty roads are pretty rough on a vehicle. Mine (1997 Limited) is starting to rust underneath. Does anyone have experience with an aftermarket coating i.e. Ziebart?

Car Detailing Experts | Auto Detailing | Ziebart | Ziebart

Do you like it? Can they effectively deal with rust that is already there? How durable are they?

Thanks,
Alex

 

[dirtbike250x]

I actually coated my frame today with rustoleum paint. Cleaned the frame real good with acetone, used rustoleum primer on the welds and coated it all with gloss black. Looks pretty good and should prevent more rust from forming.

 

[HuntNFish]

I actually coated my frame today with rustoleum paint. Cleaned the frame real good with acetone, used rustoleum primer on the welds and coated it all with gloss black. Looks pretty good and should prevent more rust from forming.

That is what I was planning on doing. I scraped the loose rust off a few weeks ago and was planning on sanding, priming and Por15ing everything. That's going to be a lot of hours. Made me wonder what other options are out there.

 

[Nelsonmd]

That stuff is pretty expensive. Once it gets warmer, come over to my place and we can take care of the rust and put some POR-15 on. The POR-15 I put on last fall looks good after this winter. I plan on putting it over my entire frame this spring.

 

[fightman80]

POR-15 is a great product....but I couldnt' be bothered to spend that much time cleaning and painting the undercarriage. I went a different route and just coated everything with grease and oil.

I'm not going to lie, it's messy to work on....but other than spraying it once a year....it's not very labour intensive.

 

[dirtbike250x]

It was a major pain all that cleaning and paiting and took me several hours but am happy with how it came out

 

[Shawn5800]

Personally, i used a mini sand blaster that hooks up to a compressor. With very low pressure, i just blasted off all the light flaking rust and some thick stuff. Then i bought 10 cans of Dupli-colors rubberized coating which has oil in it, and hardens to a nice rubber feeling. The cans themselves go pretty quick but they shoot a good 5 ft lol. Its nice for hard to reach areas. I have done this on my old tahoe and noticed very little flaking of the coating after two years...

The 10 cans cost about $50. Not bad, especially for the added protection in this state of Taxachusetts.

 

[Nelsonmd]

Personally, i used a mini sand blaster that hooks up to a compressor. With very low pressure, i just blasted off all the light flaking rust and some thick stuff. Then i bought 10 cans of Dupli-colors rubberized coating which has oil in it, and hardens to a nice rubber feeling. The cans themselves go pretty quick but they shoot a good 5 ft lol. Its nice for hard to reach areas. I have done this on my old tahoe and noticed very little flaking of the coating after two years...

The 10 cans cost about $50. Not bad, especially for the added protection in this state of Taxachusetts.

I bought a can of rubberized stuff, ended up using it to coat a big c-clamp as a test, and it came out terrible. The stuff went on porous and never really hardened well. Hopefully I can recover the clamp.

I am hoping the POR-15 will last me at least 5 years. I can't really afford much more rusting, and I don't want to spend time redoing this in a few years.

What part of Mass are you? We are getting a good little t4r.org chapter here in Mass.

 

[Shawn5800]

Ah thats to bad, sorry to hear you had no luck. Im up here in the boonies of Mass. Right outside Worcester, MA. We should def get a meet going soon.

 

[doubleA]

my T4R has a fair amount of rust on the bottom...

can someone share their method of removing the rust? is there a product I can use or is elbow grease the best way? and what tools? i was thinking of using a air grinder with a hard wire brush attachment... most the rust on my 2000 is on the frame, rear axle housing, and some bracket welded to the frame in the back.

sorry for the hijack!

 

[Baja Runner]

Yep I've just used a wire wheel (of different sizes and shapes), and "Rust Bullet" its just like POR-15. Smells like nail polish and is some crazy stuff. Wear a mask

 

[doubleA]

Yep I've just used a wire wheel (of different sizes and shapes), and "Rust Bullet" its just like POR-15. Smells like nail polish and is some crazy stuff. Wear a mask

yup, i googled wire wheel and thats what i was thinking of... ill probaly try and do a section at a time.

anyone else has a diff method?

 

[HuntNFish]

That stuff is pretty expensive. Once it gets warmer, come over to my place and we can take care of the rust and put some POR-15 on. The POR-15 I put on last fall looks good after this winter. I plan on putting it over my entire frame this spring.

Expensive is right, I called today and it would be $500, minimum.

How much Por15 should I get? I basically want to coat everything under there.

Here is another option for dealing with your rust:
1999 Toyota 4 Runner Frame

Not to hijack my own thread, but I was putting my new wheels on last night and noticed this:

Have you done your LBJ's yet? While the rest of the country has lift parties and offroad adventures maybe we could have a LBJ and Rust session?

You were also dead on- no rubbing with the new rubber!

 

[Nelsonmd]

Expensive is right, I called today and it would be $500, minimum.

How much Por15 should I get? I basically want to coat everything under there.

Here is another option for dealing with your rust:
1999 Toyota 4 Runner Frame

Not to hijack my own thread, but I was putting my new wheels on last night and noticed this:

Have you done your LBJ's yet? While the rest of the country has lift parties and offroad adventures maybe we could have a LBJ and Rust session?

You were also dead on- no rubbing with the new rubber!

Yikes, $500 is alot. That frame I think is overpriced. There can't be that much demand for a whole frame, so the price would have to be right to enter into a frame swap; that's a big job.

Not sure how much POR-15 to get. I got a 1 pint can last year. I hope it is still good after sitting in my garage all winter. I also got some of the marine clean, and the POR-15 etcher, though I will probably need more when I get into this again. The paint seems to go fairly far, but the sleaner and etcher don't go as far.

I have not done LBJ's yet. I just got 2 alignments within a month because of new tires, then new suspension, so I don't feel like going for a third right away. Plus I am waiting til it warms up a bit. that would be a good opportunity to take care of the rust on my front suspension, so I might do both in the same day.

Yeah, at least one rust session is called for; if it would stop raining.

 

[Nelsonmd]

You were also dead on- no rubbing with the new rubber!

Forgot to say... Post some pics. I want to see those sweet wheels.

 

[HuntNFish]

Forgot to say... Post some pics. I want to see those sweet wheels.

Now I gotta lift her.

 

[fightman80]

Very nice wheels man!

 

[Nelsonmd]

Nice, those look sweet!