Taking care of frame rust

Serbonze

Serbonze

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I'm ordering my SYE kit on Monday, so hopefully by the time the holidays are over I'll have it installed. I already have the rest of the needed parts as outlined in the SYE thread. One last issue that I want to take care of before I remove the transfer case drop for good, is addressing the surface rust that is on the frame.

I've seen plenty of threads on various forums that show pictures of massive rust on the frame where the transfer case skid plate bolts up. Mine is just surface rust, but I still think that I should address it before the skid plate gets put back in place. At least with the drop kit, moisture doesn't get get trapped between the two.

So my question is what is the best way to remove the surface rust, and what product should be used on the frame once the surface rust has been removed.

I've read about people using POR-15, Chassis Saver, Krylon, Duplicolor, etc...

Thoughts? Suggestions?
 
Removing rust (in my opinion) should be done with a wire wheel (or sandpaper). Get it down to bare metal, prep the metal and then paint over it with something like POR15. I use the entire POR15 process (their prep solution, primer, and paint) and it works excellent.

I know someone people just paint over surface rust with no prep whatsoever, but I like to be thorough since rust is like cancer.
 
I just don't feel right painting over rust. It just doesn't feel right. I ordered the POR-15 starter kit last night, which should be more than enough for my little job (frame rail and skid sections that contact each other). It comes with their degreaser, metal prep, and a small can of the paint which should be plenty for this little job.

For anyone that comes across this in the future, this is my plan.

Use the bottle jack and a block of wood under the transmission housing to hold it up. Run the floor jack under the skid, remove the four transmission mount nuts, then the six skid bolts, and lower the skid with the jack. I'll then do all of the prep work and painting right there, and reverse the process when complete.

Transmission nuts get torqued to 33ft/lbs and skid plate bolts to 55ft/lbs. I'm using anti-seize on the skid bolts, so I'll subtract 10% of the torque value and bring it down to 50ft/lbs.
 
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@Serbonze, I ordered the same POR15 starter kit and it worked perfect. I followed their step-by-step process with the kit and it turned out looking great and it's supposed to hold up great as well.
 
I tried using the wire wheel tonight with less than stellar results. I don't think my drill has the RPM to get the wheel moving fast enough. I'm going to stop by the hardware store tomorrow and pick one up for my four inch angle grinder. I may pick up a flap disk too, I've heard those are great as well.
 
Serbonze said:
I tried using the wire wheel tonight with less than stellar results. I don't think my drill has the RPM to get the wheel moving fast enough. I'm going to stop by the hardware store tomorrow and pick one up for my four inch angle grinder. I may pick up a flap disk too, I've heard those are great as well.
Click to expand...

Yeah you need to use the angle grinder. That will take it down to bare metal FAST. I only used the drill for some very small areas that were hard to reach.
 
Okay thanks. I'm preparing a shopping list. I'll just pick up one of everything.
:)
 
Good news...I picked up everything that I needed from Harbor Freight this morning, and the POR-15 kit arrived.
Bad news...the Metal Prep leaked all over the entire contents of the box.
Good news...Amazon is sending me a replacement kit, which means that I will have double the amount of Gloss Black and Degreaser.
Bad news...Amazon refused to overnight it so it won't be here until half way through the day on Friday, which I took off from work to do this project.
 
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That really blows! I've had to deal with Amazon customer service before in similar situations. Those guys are really great at making things right which is good.
 
Okay, skid plate removed. I totally overthought this. From reading all of the warnings online I expected the skid plate to weight 400 pounds and I had to be careful to not get trapped under it. Anyway, that was all blown way out of proportion. I put a jack stand under the transmission bell housing, there was about a 1/4" gap between the two. With the skid removed that gap is still there, so nothing dropped at all.

As of now the rust has been ground down and I just finished rinsing the frame and skid plate after the degreasing. Pictures of the frame didn't really come out, but it looks just like the skid plate. I ended up using my dremel with a wire wheel attachment to clean out the dimples in the skid.

image.jpeg


image.jpeg
 
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Looks great so far! Once it's all done it should hold up nicely and be rust free.

Shit, I sure hope that thing doesn't weigh 400 lbs, hahaha.

Clearly whoever said that exaggerated it and then some.
 
Thanks, I figured that I would document it in case anyone else was curious how to take care of some minor rust and use POR15.
 
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