What's your opinion on drilling drain holes in the frame?
- Thread starter biggrigg49
- Start date
Update:
Its hard to explain in words, but the rear cross brace wraps around the bottom of the frame. That means there is a small - about 1/8" - void that is lower than the bottom inside of the frame. Water can pool there even with the above drain hole - not much, but I'm paranoid. I ended up slotting the pictured drain hole to the bottom of the crossbrace bend. Drilling a drain hole in the bottom won't work as the bottom bumper support would cover it - although I guess you could drill through both.
If you made a slot, make sure the slot terminates in a drilled hole rather than a cut. Even if you have to remove material, the drilled end is actually much stronger than a cut end. Slots can simulate cracks, and can actually be point sources for the beginning of crack formation.
The drilled end can be small, as small as 1/4”. Just enough so that the end of the slot is radiused all the way around.
The process of terminating a crack or slot in a drilled end is called drill stopping or stop drilling. It’s commonly used as a way to arrest the growth of fatigue cracks in material when immediate repairs are infeasible.
get you some of the small copper line (2-3ft) they use for refrigerator water lines and jimmy rig that to the head of your blow gun. now you can shove that tube into any frame hole and blast shit away. it can be bent at the tip to point at the inner frame walls and blast debris loose and away. i tape my shop vac tube up to the biggest hole on the side and blow all my garbage toward it.
then i flush with clean water let it dry and then fluid film.
on a side note.........my frame was treated with eastwoods when i got it, you could easily see the puke green interior. but after a few applications of fluid film the green was gone. the product is made to penetrate and it will soak through, and it did soften and eventually strip the internal coating.
now i only bother with eastwoods on fresh steel and fluid film on everything else. if your in an arid/ dryer section of the country go for eastwoods, but anywhere else i'd go fluid film.
then i flush with clean water let it dry and then fluid film.
on a side note.........my frame was treated with eastwoods when i got it, you could easily see the puke green interior. but after a few applications of fluid film the green was gone. the product is made to penetrate and it will soak through, and it did soften and eventually strip the internal coating.
now i only bother with eastwoods on fresh steel and fluid film on everything else. if your in an arid/ dryer section of the country go for eastwoods, but anywhere else i'd go fluid film.
Last edited:
Vtx531
TJ Addict
If you don’t drill drain holes, the frame will create its own holes for water to drain out.
Unfortunately there are soooo many places for water and mud/dirt/sand to get trapped.
I didn’t think driving on sand dunes would be bad for the Jeep but the sand gets everywhere inside and then sits wet and rusts. Especially if driven on salted roads.
I recently cut out my floor pans to replace them and found a bunch of sand (and rust but not bad) in between the floor and floor support. Even though I haven’t driven in sand in YEARS. Even had sand spilling out from inaccessible places between the front floor/rocker/inner panel. If sand can get in there, so can water.
No mud, no sand. Unless you are leasing or don’t give a F. Learned my lesson.
Automatic self-created drain holes:
Unfortunately there are soooo many places for water and mud/dirt/sand to get trapped.
I didn’t think driving on sand dunes would be bad for the Jeep but the sand gets everywhere inside and then sits wet and rusts. Especially if driven on salted roads.
I recently cut out my floor pans to replace them and found a bunch of sand (and rust but not bad) in between the floor and floor support. Even though I haven’t driven in sand in YEARS. Even had sand spilling out from inaccessible places between the front floor/rocker/inner panel. If sand can get in there, so can water.
No mud, no sand. Unless you are leasing or don’t give a F. Learned my lesson.
Automatic self-created drain holes: