[crkoester]

Hey all...

Body is recently off the chassis on my 69 goat. I'm now earning my sweat equity in wire wheeling/cup brush/etc on the whole frame. It suffers the standard surface rust and 35 yrs of old oil/grease/grime packed into crevices - but it's a lifetime orig CA car and in excellent shape overall.

I should have no problem getting the outside of the frame cleaned up fine, esp once I get the suspension parts off. Once she looks ready I plan to paint her with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator (probably covered with chassis black). I will mostly brush the ERE on, but will use spray cans for the necessary crevices and detail work.

What I'm wondering about is the INSIDE of the frame. I want to do this frame work only ONE TIME for the rest of my life, but I just don't see how I can adequately address the rust and dirt inside the frame where I can't get it at.

Show quality is not an issue, this car will be a regularly driven street machine - my priority is protecting the frame as well as possible, especially given the eventual possibility (God forbid) of moving back to the road-salt-laden Midwest.

Yes, I looked into blasting, but best local deal I can find is $500 for the frame (not including the pain of renting a trailer and hauling to and fro), which I already have more than 1/3 done anyway. I've pretty much ruled out outsourcing sand-blasting. I have no blasting experience or equipment myself, and don't have a great setup to do it unless I just do it in my backyard. I only have a small (20 gal) compressor at the time that I don't think would be sufficient anyway, and lack the resources to upgrade at the moment.
I've also ruled out having the frame dipped.

So how best to deal with the inside-the-frame stuff? I'm not horribly paranoid about leaving surface rust on, as long as I can get to it and seal it with some of the Rust Encapsulator. However, some areas of the inside of the boxed parts of the frame I can see accumulation of dirt/grime that is impossible to physically get to so that I can even remove it and expose the inner surface of the frame.

The only decent thought I have had is to just soak the snot out of all of that stuff in some type of degreaser for a while, and then try to blast it as best I can with a pressure washer through the holes in the frame. What are the chances this can get the job done? Can anyone recommend any SUPER-chemicals I can use to loosen this stuff up before pressure spraying?

And let's assume I get the job done sufficiently - how then to best get paint where it needs to go inside the frame?

Thanks for your help guys....


Chris

[crkoester]

Hey all...

Body is recently off the chassis on my 69 goat. I'm now earning my sweat equity in wire wheeling/cup brush/etc on the whole frame. It suffers the standard surface rust and 35 yrs of old oil/grease/grime packed into crevices - but it's a lifetime orig CA car and in excellent shape overall.

I should have no problem getting the outside of the frame cleaned up fine, esp once I get the suspension parts off. Once she looks ready I plan to paint her with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator (probably covered with chassis black). I will mostly brush the ERE on, but will use spray cans for the necessary crevices and detail work.

What I'm wondering about is the INSIDE of the frame. I want to do this frame work only ONE TIME for the rest of my life, but I just don't see how I can adequately address the rust and dirt inside the frame where I can't get it at.

Show quality is not an issue, this car will be a regularly driven street machine - my priority is protecting the frame as well as possible, especially given the eventual possibility (God forbid) of moving back to the road-salt-laden Midwest.

Yes, I looked into blasting, but best local deal I can find is $500 for the frame (not including the pain of renting a trailer and hauling to and fro), which I already have more than 1/3 done anyway. I've pretty much ruled out outsourcing sand-blasting. I have no blasting experience or equipment myself, and don't have a great setup to do it unless I just do it in my backyard. I only have a small (20 gal) compressor at the time that I don't think would be sufficient anyway, and lack the resources to upgrade at the moment.
I've also ruled out having the frame dipped.

So how best to deal with the inside-the-frame stuff? I'm not horribly paranoid about leaving surface rust on, as long as I can get to it and seal it with some of the Rust Encapsulator. However, some areas of the inside of the boxed parts of the frame I can see accumulation of dirt/grime that is impossible to physically get to so that I can even remove it and expose the inner surface of the frame.

The only decent thought I have had is to just soak the snot out of all of that stuff in some type of degreaser for a while, and then try to blast it as best I can with a pressure washer through the holes in the frame. What are the chances this can get the job done? Can anyone recommend any SUPER-chemicals I can use to loosen this stuff up before pressure spraying?

And let's assume I get the job done sufficiently - how then to best get paint where it needs to go inside the frame?

Thanks for your help guys....


Chris

[crkoester]

BTW the car is a hardtop, so the only enclosed portions of the frame are in front and rear, around and including the front/rear crossmembers and the front sections of the rails that extend out to support the rad core support. The side frame rails themselves are not boxed (as I believe they are in a convertible?).


Chris

[Judas]

I have the same car. As far as I know, there is no way to do this at home. The only solution I know of is to have the frame acid dipped then dipped into some sort of paint or galvanizing compound. The problem? Its not available in many places. I know it can be done in remote places, but here on the East coast, I know of no one that can do it. If you can find a place, then your in good shape.

[awsum67]

Chris, you bring up a good point. I am restoring my 67 GTO convertible and this same issue has crossed my mind. However, I have more boxed areas of the frame since it is a convertible.

I have read many good posts about the experiences of people on this board. Dipping gets the job done but you have to deal with leaching from underneath your new paint job.

I have concluded that I am going to use one of those undercoating sprayers that you can buy from Eastwood with a variety of nozzle patterns and extensions to access the areas that I cannot reach. Provided that it is not excessive, the rust inside the frame offers something of a protective barrier. If you remove it and do not coat the exposed surface, the rusting process just starts over again.

My thought process is to leave what is there and place a barrier on top of that to cut off air to prevent futher rusting. I intend to pressure wash, degrease, clean, etc as much as possible on the inside and use the sprayer to reach into the areas that are inaccessible. Admittedly, I have not figured out all of the details because I am not there yet, but Bill (wlpsyp) in Anchorage was the post where I saw this technique used. He used it on his 68 GTO frame. Bill could you explain more about how you did this? Chris and I would appreciate it. Probably others.

[crkoester]

Is this what you are referring to?

I wonder how the anti-rust compound differs from Rust Encapsulator.

http://www.eastwood.com/shopping/pro...oating+sprayer


Chris

[awsum67]

Yes Chris, that is the kit I was talking about.

[DadHarley]

Let me tell you what I did and see if you think it may work.
66 Catalina convert. w/boxed frame.

The exterior of the frame I sand blasted myself, no issue there.

The grease, industrial grease cutter, diluted. Hand held spray bottles, sprayed, set, rinsed, dried. Repeated several times over the course of 2 weeks. I did so until rinse water looked clean enought to drink. Chimney brushes...that's right. I ran them through the rails in all holes, anywhere I could get to. I cut some of the bristles down so fitting was easier. I took a garden variety wire brush, cut the wood down around the bristles, and angle cut some of the bristles to get in the corners, and pointed some to get into the smallest areas. I basically made my own handles for these brushes. Another round bristle brush I attached screw eyes to each end, and bailing wire to the eyes, long enough to fit through, front to back. This I fed into the rails and attached wood dowles as handles. My son and I each grabbed an end and worked it like mad men, back and forth. Like 2 persons using a large tree/wood saw. Yeh, we looked silly, but slowly all reddish color dust and grease was going away. Satisified that all loose scale was gone, I degreased once again. Remember, unless you can direct the pressure of the brush, you need to make the bristles slightly larger than the frame itself. This oversize will give your bristles the pressure necessary to do the work.

For the paint, I used the POR15 and associated products. This included the rust neutralizer.

How I applied to the interior of the rails.
Thinned paint as per instructions. Hand help plastic spray bottles, for the easier parts. For deep inside the rails. A garden insecticide sprayer. Home Depot, long handle w/ adjustable spary nozzle. The type you pump to pressurize. Pump it up, insert deep, pull trigger and slowly withdraw. Repeated several times and for 2 to 3 coats worth. I used a cheepie little mirror (auto zone) to peep inside after drying to see if I missed. I was very happy with the effort. Yes it was alot of effort, friends said, "WHY" it will nerver be seen. But I know and that's good enough for me and the effort.

anyway just my .02
John

[awsum67]

John, how did you deal with the front crossmember??

[wlpsyp]

I just finished doing this on our 68 GTO hardtop frame. I sent the frame out to a sand blasters, they did a very good job. I brought the frame home, inspected it and noticed they missed some spots inside the front crossmember and the rear where end where it begins to raise up by the rear ciol spring area. We took our portabale sand blaster and got the rest out. What we could not get out we just left.

We then sprayed EER and then chassis black on the frame. Two coats of each. Looks great if you ask me. We used the Eastwoods undercoating gun system. Worked fantastic. Inside all the channels are coated very well. We are please and have begun front suspension re-assembly.

Bill

[dakotadog]

Well if you want to go really crazy you can also take it to a place that does boat trailer galvanizing. I looked into this a while back. In terms of sandblasting, when I did my frame I rented the blsaster and a tow behind compressor and did the whole thing in an afternoon. Makes a real mess though....

http://www.us.indgalv.com.au/

[troy_barker]

I just finished my 67 HT frame. I used the wire brush method on the outside. On the inside I used high pressure water first, then I used a rust converter(OSPHO).I then used HPW as before.Then OSPHO again. I then used ERE applied with a bug sprayer (the pump up type as described above). This worked great as far as I can tell. It has now turned cold so I will have to wait to apply the chassis black on a warmer day.