Rustproofing

One of things that sold me on this truck was the amazingly rust free chassis. It is most likely due to it only being in a snow state for the last year and some early Ming rustproofing I found in the receipts. I don’t expect the chassis to stay that way after a few winters of salted Denver roads, so rust prevention was in order.

Some research pointed to Fluid Film as the most promising approach. I have never used this product before, but the interweb voices strongly support this product over others.

I went to a manual car wash last night and power washed and rinsed the underside. The starting point is rust free, and I hope Fluid Film will keep it that way.

This is what I used. The mask was a bit overkill, but I recommend at least a dust mask as you will be breathing the spray.

My kit came with a hose that had a 360 degree sprayer on the end that worked well to get inside the frame.

Some things that I learned:

It doesn’t take more than a couple of hours to get this done. I started spraying inside the rails and body and then worked my way from front to back for the surface treatment.
The process took more cans than I expected (11 cans). Granted, like most things, I probably over did it, but it will probably take about 5 or 6 cans to treat the underside of a unibody car.
Next time use the air sprayer. Fluid Film also has a sprayer that can be used with an air compressor and their bulk fluid. It’s not difficult to use the spray cans, but there is only one spray pressure that led to many areas with a really thick and dripping coating.

This winter I won’t be washing the underside of the truck, and will watch to see if the coating stays on.

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