Cleaning the undercarriage

The undercarriage is in need of some TLC. Lost of surface rust. I would love to have is sand/media blasted. I have not called any shops yet but wanted to know... Am I able to take it in and have them clean it up without pulling to much apart? to both save time and money? Or do most places only except the shell. I'm not looking to do a complete custom paint job under there.. just plan to patch the tiny holes, use rustbullet or something of that nature then put a coat of something over that.. paint or ? to keep the rust away.

You ALWAYS want to clean your undercarriage, proper hygiene is essential!

Sorry I just couldn't help myself when I saw the title.
Whenever I need something blasted I try to find a place that use baking soda. It is much easier to clean out with air and less harmful to you and the environment. I am sure many places would take it as is. and just give it a good shot. guaranteed it wont be perfect but should be good enough for what you are looking to do.

Not sure if this will help..any?
I am addressing surface rust on my frame right now.. but I have cab and bed off the frame.
I am going to pressure wash and use a heavy degreaser. Then use a product
Napasco
With this stuff you do not need or want to get to bare metal.. just not scale rust or loose paint.
I attached 2 quick pictures so you can see how it works.I brushed the one area... but I was thinking about just pouring the Enrust in a pump sprayer and getting after it ???
When I get a few of the larger areas done I'll post the pictures.

Torres70380 said:

Not sure if this will help..any?
I am addressing surface rust on my frame right now.. but I have cab and bed off the frame.
I am going to pressure wash and use a heavy degreaser. Then use a product
Napasco
With this stuff you do not need or want to get to bare metal.. just not scale rust or loose paint.
I attached 2 quick pictures so you can see how it works.I brushed the one area... but I was thinking about just pouring the Enrust in a pump sprayer and getting after it ???
When I get a few of the larger areas done I'll post the pictures.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. yes please post pics. I have a feeling I might end up pulling it all off.

I sure will.... It started small.... with recovering the seats.
Then it grew and grew... and when the dust cleared... I figured do it all now I do not want to go back and have to pull it apart again.

Will not have any until the weekend... but will keep you posted

Subscribed! Looking for more photos.

i have work to do on my project,and pretty soon it will be time to clean / prep the chassis / axles / brakes / etc.

i have to remove the body and rear bed from my truck anyway,and after close inspection have decided that a few [ not many ] parts require media blasting,the rest look to be good to go with a steam clean.

i am lucky to have a real diesel powered industrial steam cleaner [ maybe you could hire one ?]

using this first will remove all but the worst crud and corrosion.

i plan to steam clean my 1959 chassis and then decide which parts need media blasting.

there are some good plans on the web for a baking soda blaster,which is simple and fairly effective [ i made one ]-i plan to build a 'bigger,badder one ' and use sand as a medium to blast my chassis parts.

it,s just a compressed air source and a hose/venturi pick up type blaster.

good luck with your build.

I'll first toss out a disclaimer that I personally have not used or been around soda blasting so I have no first hand experiance with it.That being said , a while back I was on the Al Gore interweb google searching the topic Sandblasting,etc and ran across a body shop forum.

The discussion that stuck with me was one of the plus and minus aspect of soda blasting.After reading a bit I came to the quick conclusion that originally soda blasting was considered the Almighty's gift to all whom needed a easy way to prep for paint. I came away with the very strong feeling that maybe soda blasting has been outted as not being nearly as good as everyone thought at first.

Bottom line was lots and lots of (catastrophic)paint adhesion failures due to the soda NOT being able to be really cleaned off the surface.Apparently it forms a very thing coating during the process that is hard to remove.

Like I said ,I don't have first hand experiance but I came away with enough doubt that I think I will steer clear.

Can anyone that has lots of experiance chime in?--inquiring minds want to know more.

Jim

Sandblast using #4 sand. I use a 175 CFM compressor and a 2 sack pot, but my buddy has good results with a hobbyist type pot using two 5 hp compressors ganged together.

i built a simple soda blaster like the one here-

http://www.aircooledtech.com/tools-on-the-cheap/soda_blaster/

it was great.baking soda is generally better for the non ferrus,delicate parts,i believe that bicarbonate of soda crystals are bigger and harsher than the baking soda ones and these are used for heavier jobs-

as for any deposits,all i did was wash the carbs in warm water,any deposits remaining dissolved,leaving a very fine residue,which disappeared with an air blast.

for a chassis i would go with sand.

Sandblast

I have a 7.5hp/80gal compressor that is plumbed in with my old 60gal receiver(flat wore out the ol' girl).The Hardley Fright sandblaster holds about a sack so that kinda slows the job down but we get it done.Used 30 grit sand ,PPG 40/401 Epoxy Primer and Concept single stage on
the Freightliner's frame last summer. Kinda slow--not a real high production show but we got'r done.

Yep,sand's a little to aggressive for non-ferrous---I just bought some walnut shell to try on a motorcycle engine--we'll see how that goes.

I need to get my system down so I'll be ready for the green iron projects around here.

Oh, and I'll see if I can get pictures on here of my Redneck Engineering,INC Mk VII sandblasting hood.LOL

zak said:

Sandblast

Click to expand...

Just how cool is that homemade roto-stand!!GEEEZ! I love this site!! Thanks for yet another great idea!

Jim

Tinwoodsman said:

Subscribed! Looking for more photos.

Click to expand...

Had a chance to do the pressure washing with a little heat



After that started to apply the Enrust...Napasco
Here are a few pictures ... I used a paint brush to apply.... tomorrow will try using the hand pump sprayer to see how that works ??


In Img. 3318 It's still wet I had just finish... when It dries it will turn blackies.

Tinwoods...... I should have some pictures with primer over the enrust by the weekend... will post them later

Looking great!

Thanks!
When I am done... I'll have a nice long write from start to finish.

Getting ready to tackle this myself...Thanks for the pics!

My suggestion would be check with your local friends if you have any that work for a steel fab company close by. We/most larger fabricators (ship yards too) all have large "Wheel-a-brators" blasters. Our's is big enough that i've taken my M101's and turned them on their side with the tires off and ran the entire trailer through! A few minutes later you have a clean blasted body ready to prime! I can run stuff up to 8' tall through it....

Danged Torres, you have been busy! Looks good! please post followups when you can!

BTW, changed companies and working for Chouest now out of Brazil. When I get off and am coming through MC, I'll stop by! I really wanna see this up close and personal!