Slowing the rust demon

My Wisconsin Weather daily driver is an 02 Ford F250 CC/SB 7.3 Diesel 4x4. I love it. It does absolutely everything I need in absolute comfort. It came from down south and has around 300k miles on it. Paid off so I plan on keeping it a while yet.

Its been here 3 winters now, and is starting to show some rust on the underside. It was never undercoated. All the rust is light surface rust at this point, on spot welds and edges of panels.

So what should I do? I thought I would jack it up on 4 tall jackstands, pull the wheels and running boards, hit the whole underside of the truck with a steam cleaner (I can get one from work, gas powered, it rocks!) and then either

POR 15
Rustoleum
????????

Planning on painting the frame, suspension, and as much of the underbody as I can with whatever product the hive suggests.

Any idea on inside the doors? I thought about just dumping half a cup of drain oil in the bottoms of all the doors - let it leak. Just be careful getting in and out for a week or so.

Years ago (about 45) I was growing up in Quebec. It was standard practice with lots of the older owners to spray the underside, and the painted surfaces of their vehicles with furnace, or diesel oil every fall. Car would look like crap all winter and then it would take a lot of cleaning to get it off in the spring. But it did seem to work, and this was back in the day when a new car would have rust holes in 5 or 6 years.

I use this stuff: http://www.fluid-film.com/

We always sprayed all our old farm equipment with drain oil in a hudson sprayer before longterm outdoor storage or winter (salty road) running. Did keep it rust-free-ish.

Chassis saver and big mud flaps

Por15 with the Pre cleaners will do the trick.

Move?

That's all I got.

Spray wax/oil on it, I remember reading a recipe for it a while ago, something like 1 toilet wax ring, 1 qt SAE 30HD oil, 2 or 3 quarts 100% mineral spirits paint thinner (gas would probably work).

bgkast wrote: Por15 with the Pre cleaners will do the trick.

This.

And mud flaps.

And drill small holes in rockers/cab corners/etc to spray waste oil or fluid film in.

There is no way to win against rust in your climate. The only possible thing is to delay the inevitable. Kind of lime a land war in Russia.

Por15 then Krown (sprayed in everywhere) . Wash underside evey couple of weeks during salt season. Re-Krown every year or two.

+1 for what Aspen said (although Fluid Film or used oil could work in place of Krown)

Por-15 will last the longest. Heck, they use it to coat oceangoing tankers.

Did an experiment with our last set of cars. A pair of 2002 Mazda Proteges that we bought at the same time. One Krown sprayed every fall and one left to its own devices as built by the factory.

We sold the cars when they were 10 years old. Both dealers offered no more than $300 trade-in. So, the wife won since she had not spent $1000 over the ten years to undercoat hers every fall.

Rather than trade in, we gave the cars to friends in need. Both are off the road now due to terminal rust, mine lasted two years longer. So I guess my investment was worth it to the next owner, but not to me.

Moral of the story is "You cant beat rust in a salty environment". No matter what you do, your car and your dog are going to last about the same!