willowdog

In looking at my frame the outside seems to be painted/coated. When I tap it with a hammer all around it is pretty solid. What I'm wonder is the inside of the frame. When I stick my finger inside the hole in the frame just in front of the rear tire (hole was manufactured in, not rusted in) I can feel rust. Is there something I can spray in there to inhibit rust? I'm from the midwest so I know that cars often rust from the inside out.

Thanks,
Bruce

6T5RUSH

willowdog,

Here's what you can do with the body on the frame. Buy the rustproofing tools (it's a kit from Eastewood). Comes with different lengths of wands, spray tips, as well as a flexible line to hook up to a compressor.

Using these tools, hook this up to a compressor and proceed to blow out any loose crud from inside your frame rails. There are plenty of hole accesses to allow you to do this.

Then I would use the POR 15 products to rustproof the inside rails. Use the Metal Ready to prep the metal followed by the POR15 chassis black.

Be prepared for a friggin' big mess. I'm in the middle of doing this in the bird cage area at the cowl from inside the car. What a friggin' mess. Sure the hell glad I laid out paper and covered everything.

Since you are spraying, be sure to cover the car and sides as well as the floor you are working on. Stop off at an auto supply paint place and by a roll of that painter's paper they use to mask off cars for painting. Pick up a roll of the blue tape that will allow no marks on your painted surfaces.

The process is messy but the results will last a hulluva long time.

Others I'm sure will chime in here and give their experiences with tackling this project.

Good luck!

Regards,

Jim

willowdog

Thanks Jim,

When you say messy I would assume you're talking about all the rust dust getting all over or does the por15 get all over too?

6T5RUSH

willowdog,

Although the dust raising will create it's own mess (it's a good idea to have masked off and covered the car prior to doing this as wel)l, I was speaking about the spraying of the paint into your frame. You're going to have to cover those areas under the car as well to avoid the spray shooting out of a hole and hitting your trans etc...

The other issue is drips. Plan on covering your floor as well.

By the way, this stuff ain't a good idea to breathe into your system. Keep the area well ventilated. If not possible then secure some good breathing masks. When your done spraying for a given time, crack open the garage door and ventilate the area. Make sure you wear protective clothing and rubber gloves. That stuff gets on you, you're now a pinto!

Good luck!

Regards,

Jim

65coupe

I'll tell you what I did on my 65 after I bought it 17 years ago. Its alot cheaper and I always questioned some of these rustproofing systems. Many systems only work on new virgin metal. If you spray over the inside of the frame and there is any moisture or corrosion, that moisture will continue to rust through the frame, IMO of course.
I would lay out on your garage floor several layers of newspaper, then drive your car over it. Buy an oil can with the long flexible nozzle and a quart of 10-30 oil. Squirt oil inside the entire frame of the car moving the direction of the nozzle so to hit as much of the inside of the box as possible. Dont be afraid to use alot of oil. Most important is to hit the inside top of the frame box. Next drive out to the street fast and allow the oil to slosh around and run out of the frame and then back in the garage over the paper where you will leave for a week. This oil covering will not allow any rust and will not allow exsting rust to rust any further. It also keep any inside nuts and bolts nice and corrosion free.

6T5RUSH

65Coupe,

You're correct on applying a pertroleum based product to insulate any further rust. A friend of mine has pretty much a survivor '66 'vert that the motor compartment and front end area is covered with a thick coat of oil/grease that pretty much insulated that part of the car from rust.

That POR15 process does work on rusty metal...if you follow their 2 step process. If I remember correctly, I purchased a 6-pack of 1/2 pint containers of the POR15 along with a kit which includes the Metal Ready. The metal ready looks like windshield washer solvent and you can spray it right from the plastic bottle sprayer they supply. For deep crevice areas, just pour it into the jug supplied by Eastwood, using your compressor. It's the metal ready that preps the rusty metal allowing the POR15 to work...and it does. That stuff becomes part of the frame. Between the POR15 products and the kit from Eastwood, I had a little better than $100.00 incl shipping to my home.

I am assuming willowdog has a compressor to make this Eastwood kit work. The changeable tips on the wands they provide allows you to shoot the product at a 45 degree angle back at you as well as a 90 degree angle. They include a tip which just shoots straight ahead in a shotgun pattern. All in all, in my book, a nice reasonably priced setup that allows you to do do this type of work well.

Either way you have a mess on your hands. With 65coupe's method, you sort of spread it around the neighborhood

Jim

firstgear

good thread.....thanks!

willowdog

I gave the supplier of POR-15 a quick call. Seems like this will work for well for me. As to doing the birdcage, I can't image but it's probably something worth doing, just not for me right now.

It would seem that given a fixed number of holes I should somehow be able to control the 'stuff' that comes out either by taping some shut or by putting some sort of bag over the others to allow for expansion. Am I kidding myself? I will protect the paint/floor but it would prefer to minimize the mess and I might even do some of it outside to allow for better venting. We sprayed my son's surfboard in the garage with a clear coat and you can't imagine the fog.

6T5RUSH

willowdog,

Just got in from shooting the dash substructure and center section with SEM Trim Black.

This will give you an idea of the wrapping you've got to do. It ain't pretty but it works. The 2nd shot is the dash with 2 coats from a rattle can.

I'm sorry for the size of the pics...I am working on mastering this downsizing.





Regards,

Jim

willowdog

Quite a project just to spray a small area. Thanks for the pix.

p.s. It must be nice to have a lift. It doesn't seem to be something I could buy and sneak into the garage, however.

p.p.s. There's some freeware at www.irfanview.com that works pretty well to manipulate pictures. It looks complex but it can be used to quickly/easily downsize one or a batch pictures. I got it for my son and daughter to help them post pix to the www. I have NO relationship whatsoever to this product.

northern

In theory, painting the inside of a frame sounds good. But it is not very practical. I wouldn't try to paint the inside of a boxed rusty frame with POR 15 or any other kind of paint. It iwill be nearly impossible to properly clean the surface before painting. And how will you know when you have everything properly and thoroughly coated with the paint? In addition, it will be difficult to properly protect the car from the paint overspray.

The oil bath route would be a lot easier and possibly better in the long run. If you can live with the mess, blowing the dirt out of the frame first might be a good idea. But you also have to do that if you follow the painting route.

Manufacturers make specialty oils designed for rustproofing metal. A company by the name of Lloyds makes a product called AD2000 that protects metal, even in constantly wet salt water environments. Other companies likely make similar products. You might also check with commercial rustproofing companies that have the equipment and materials to do this.

Another nice thing about the oil bath is that you can give it another treatment in five or ten years without a lot of preparation. One downside to using oil is that oil will drip from the frame for a while, which will mean some cleanup work.

My 2 cents worth.

cv67

w/Northern. I swear by POR-15, but it would be impossible to see what youre doing. Id spray it all down w/oil .

Fwiw, using marine clean prior to the metal prep helps.

Chuck Gongloff

Easiest thing to do is find a Rusty Jones or Ziebart franchise.

Clean/blow out your frame rails yourself. Watch for mouse nests. You'll probably find a few, and have to pick them out with a bent coathanger.

After you're done, take the car to the franchise dealer and have the interior of the rails sprayed. Won't cost much.

That's what I've done on all 3 of my old Corvettes. Chuck

Woodie

Hi There is a product that Geblers sells that is a sprayable/brush rust inhibitor. It is a white milky looking product that when is reacts to rust it turns a very nice black and encapsulates rust. Now I normally then spray black paint over this as is can turn milky again if really soaked in water. It really does stop rust and it is sold by the gallon. There is another of the same name sold in auto stores ( can't remember brand name) but it appears and seems to work exactly the same for a LOT less money.

6T5RUSH

cuisinartvette,

Your right about the use of that marine clean

northern,

Although you are doing this "blind", the tools Eastwood provides would get into those boxed sections to accomplish this. Frankly, like Chuck Gongloff said, taking it to a rustproofing place would be a good alternative to doing it yourself, avoiding all the prep and mess.

That's exactly what I did years ago when I pulled the body off my frame. After blasting and painting the exterior of the frame, I trailered the frame over to a Ziebart shop and for less than $100. at that time, they sprayed their products inside all the frame rails and boxed sections and let her drip for a day.

The topic here was doing this while the body is on the car and preparing the car to avoid the resulting mess of spraying her, doing it yourself. I would be curious to see, body on frame, how the rustproofing shops would ensure not spraying the undercarriage, jobbing out this task. Would be worth checking into before tackling this yourself.

Jim

northern

It sounds as if many of us are agreeing that rust preventative oil (some sort of non-hardening coating other than paint) may be a fairly safe thing to apply inside a frame.

If the undercoating places can provide that, you would save yourself a lot of work and mess. But stay away from undercoatings that harden and form solid barriers. They might be fine on new cars or cars that have no rust. But existing rust loves to work away behind those coatings.

I have used POR 15, including their Marine Clean and Acid Etching, on exposed surfaces that one can get at well to prepare properly. But I would not use it on the inside of a frame on a car that I valued and wanted to keep for a long time. Another product I have used is Eastwood Rust Encapsulator. I don't like the Rust Encapsulator - I have seen it peel extensively unless put on over a thoroughly sandblasted surface. (Does anyone want to buy a couple of gallons of the stuff?)

Chuck Gongloff

The local franchise (Ziebart) has all different sizes of wands, extensions, etc. They slip the wands into existing holes in the frame and squirt away.

They got NONE on my undercarriage. It will ooze out of creases in the frame, and it will smell for awhile, but it's SO easy, and CHEAP.

Why buy a bunch of "stuff" that you're only going to use once?

I still suggest taking the easy way out. You'll save money and headaches. Chuck

willowdog

I'd be afraid of bringing my car in to someplace as, unless they let me sit there, I'd think they'd start drilling a few holes to "make the work easier".

While I would agree that it would be hard/impossible to do a 'perfect' job, I guess I feel that something is better than nothing in this case.