I have cleaned all of the rust chunks and debris from inside the rails. I can wash inside the rails with a pressure washer, low pressure. But I do not see how it's going to flush everything out. The holes in the side rails do not go down far enough to drain everything completely. I have drilled in the rails I am not sure that would be enough. Advice please??
Sealing undercarriage and inside frame
- Thread starter Mike H.
- Start date
Have you drilled holes in the bottom of the frame for drainage? If not, it will not drain everything out completely. You need to drill at least 1/2" holes on the bottom of the frame near the control arm mounts.
You should read this thread: https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/how-to-clean-your-jeep-wrangler-tj-frame.3249/
you're correct, and all of my comments are assuming the hole is sealed by the tow bar mounting bracket. I retract my insult to the engineers (for this 4 inch section of the frame only, they still suck on the overall frame). My frame has been sealed back there since I bought it which created the trench, with those giant holes you've got back there, there's no need to widen the rear holes as I've done. I'd still widen however on a case by case basis as I'm sure many others have unwittingly plugged that hole up - the prior owner installed the tow bar on mine & it has those bolt plates (?) that you fish in to secure the rail which completely covers over everything.
I actually have an endoscopic photo that lit up that entire inside section showing what mine looked like but damn if I can find it; here's the outside though:
View attachment 369401
This area in red would probably hold a half cup of water. And if you're in the salt-belt make that a half a cup of brine. I've seen more of these sections rotted out than I can count around here.
View attachment 369403
This makes more sense now. I don't have the hitch utilizing those holes so drainage in the final inches of the frame rail is of no issue.
I could tell during cleaning that pretty much all the debris was collecting in the middle low section of the rails. With the addition of the drain holes, it was a just a matter of pushing the debris back and forth to the holes. I could tell but what collected on the floor of the wash stall that I was making progress. Eventually nothing more came out.
That was last year. This year I did a visual inspection as well as blowing compressed air through and got only a few tiny bits out of the drain holes. The rails looked and felt clean. That was the green light to do the FF treatment.
When I had the undercarriage done (pretty much all of it) we used POR 15. Inside the rails we used Fluid Film Black. Initially the POR 15 looks glossy. It cures to a pretty high gloss. POR 15 makes a matte top coat, but to be candid, after a few trips in sand and dirt the gloss wasn't so obnoxious.
You're not wrong in your thinking. Really large flakes are going to block the drain holes. This is why I did it multiple times. I flushed the debris to the where the drain holes are, which is pretty close to the oval holes on the side of the rails and then used the magnetic wand to collect the flakes and extract them through the large holes. Sooner or later nothing comes out on the magnet and what drains out of the holes is clean water.
Strongly recommend you don't rush it. If you leave debris in the rails and then spray FF or something similar, you won't get adequate coverage in the bottoms of the rails, which are the most vulnerable areas.
What's confusing? Questions are encouraged
Sure did. Actually I did that the second day I had the Jeep. I mentioned this earlier in this thread. 1/2" holes in behind the front CA mounts and in front of the rears.
LOL....when I took the Dale Carnegie course, my 'name hack" involved microphones in high places.
Yes 1/2" holes. I did clean the rails with the pressure washer. Everything is very clear. ValuGard is the sealer Line X will use. The undercarriage is a powder coating and they said the rails have a film coating.
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