Chassis preservation - access where its needed?

[julianf]

Ive read no end of tales of people painting used chassis, however, i just cant really see how this is done.

Sure, painting the easy bits is, well, easy, but where, for example, hoses run, or wiring looms, break pipes, and the like. Without removing all of them, prep for painting just seems impossible.

And, if theyre all removed, then you kind of may as well go the whole way, and get the chassis blasted!


Im just trying to work things out. I know there are a million posts on it, but i just dont really see how its possible. The very bits that are hard to get to are the bits where grim keeps the moisture.

Spraying somthing like dinitrol (the penetrating one) is easy in comparison, but it just feels like a short cut that may not actually do the job. Ive sprayed no end of that kind of stuff on my disco chassis, and its still doing its best to revert back to the earth.

 

[zzr1200]

Generally only the outside of the chassis is painted, if you want to protect the inside you would then hot dip (galv or zinc) or spray wax-oil type protection inside.

You have to totally strip the chassis bare to do a proper job, including the metalastic chassis bushes for road springs.

Personally I would totally strip it, shot blast it, then weld up the remaining cheese like structure and then decide either to hot dip and/or paint the chassis.

 

[Burdekin]

Preferable to take everything off, next best would be to unscrew a fitting, clean, sand, paint, and then refit. Then tape off what you can and clean, sand and paint the remaining of the chassis. Then chassis wax over the fittings, screws etc and nooks and crannies where rust might form.

 

[8ob]

If you are not going to strip it down there is no point in painting it, you would be better of steam cleaning all the crud off, let it dry for a few days and wax oil it. One guy I knew used all his sump oil out of his Landrover on his chassis, a bit messy but very effective.

Bob

 

[bigegg]

If you are not going to strip it down there is no point in painting it, you would be better of steam cleaning all the crud off, let it dry for a few days and wax oil it. One guy I knew used all his sump oil out of his Landrover on his chassis, a bit messy but very effective.

Bob

VERY effective!
My old transit had an oil leak (about a litre a month) which dripped onto the aux belt, coating the entire engine bay in a fine layer of oil.
There was not the slightest bit of rust all the way back to the gearbox.
THEN it was rotten!

 

[Gritineye]

Don't mess about with waxoil, use Anchorwax, the stuff that actually works.

http://www.morrislubricantsonline.co.uk/ankor-wax-preservative-fluid.html

 

[keithski122]

My dad used old engine oil on his van to rust proof it, I refused to work on it after that as it was so manky underneath.

 

[rcx132]

Ive read no end of tales of people painting used chassis, however, i just cant really see how this is done.

Sure, painting the easy bits is, well, easy, but where, for example, hoses run, or wiring looms, break pipes, and the like. Without removing all of them, prep for painting just seems impossible.

And, if theyre all removed, then you kind of may as well go the whole way, and get the chassis blasted!


Im just trying to work things out. I know there are a million posts on it, but i just dont really see how its possible. The very bits that are hard to get to are the bits where grim keeps the moisture.

Spraying somthing like dinitrol (the penetrating one) is easy in comparison, but it just feels like a short cut that may not actually do the job. Ive sprayed no end of that kind of stuff on my disco chassis, and its still doing its best to revert back to the earth.

I think you're right, there's no point painting it if you cant get to the nooks and crannies which is where the rust thrives.

I've removed my chassis and got it blasted and painted it. The hard bit was removing the stonechip which took two days. Getting the chassis off was two days work. It took forever to paint it because of all the coats (primer, primer, stripe coat, seam seal, top coat, top coat, wax) so next time I'll consider galvonising.

Waxes and oils are supposed to be reapplied regularly.

When you say you've already applied Dinitrol and it still rusts, what's happened there? Did the Dinitrol not reach the right areas, or it rusted under the Dinitrol? Or the Dinitrol didn't stay on?

 

[Beeezer]

Old engine oil with a hint of diesel does it for me, the diesel helps it creep into the nooks and crannies. Aplied with a shutz gun, messy but worth while I think.

 

[rcx132]

I'd rather deal with engine oil rather than any oilywaxy product at all.

Also, I've never known any if them actually work - maybe it's improper application (the usual method seems to be give it a hose off then spray gloop everywhere) but the rustiest vehicles I've dealt with always have some form of wax on.

Even some where the waxy coating looked perfect you could peel off a sheet of rust attached to the back of it.

At least with real oil you can degrease it if you need to do any hot works - waxy snake oil you struggle to remove the 10% that actually sticks and then it catches fire...

Maybe people were adding the wax after their car had rusted, to try to stop it spreading further. And if the rust is too thick then the wax just won't penetrate the rust, so you get what you saw, where you can pull off the wax as a rusty sheet.

I'm still new to this stuff, but when I first bought wax a year ago I sprayed the semi open cavity of my garden gate lock. The wax is still 100% a year on. What did worry me though was the Practical Mechanics test which showed that some of the waxes dry out and stop sticking within three years. Considering the advice is to re-apply every three years I would have expected the wax to last five years.

I'm still weary of hot dip galvonising. If some people are reporting their chassis coming out banana shaped, then I wonder how many chassis are coming out visibly straight but still warped enough to cause minor handling issues. I own my Vitara because it's a a good handling car (yep rubbish by road car standards, e.g. compared to an MX5, but for a 4x4 it handles very good). I'd hate to have that messed up by a warped chassis. I measured my chassis when I had it off, and I was amazed that all corners, all body mounts, and suspension mounts were square to within a few mm (modern engineering hey!).