Best Treatment To Prevent Rust On Undercarriage?

Josey Wales

Josey Wales

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Kansas City, KS, USA
First Name
Joe
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Davey
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7589

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US Army
I have lived in Germany for three years and like many places farther North, they use road salt to excess in order to prevent icy roads. Been digging around for some good options in order to prevent and in some cases treat some small rust that's built up.

What have you used and was it worth it?
 
I've used a wire brush and some rust killer spray paint as a touch up to spots I find after fishing trips. But I always wash my vehicles after salt water fishing trips so I don't have that long contact rust issue.

I'm also curious if anyone has ever tried a sacrificial anode, usually aluminum, like what manufactures put on marine outboards and water heaters. It would probably require a grounding strap but that is easy to find.
 
Depending on how much you care about the look of your rig, I used black spray on rhino liner on the lower panels of my jeep and it acted as a great barrier against that crud when I was up in northern new york.
 
Buy a gallon of fluid film and a Hudson sprayer. They also have spray cans, that’s what I used for the inside of my frame rails when I mounted my sliders. I live in ca and don’t have to deal with road salt, but wanted to be sure the holes I drilled weren’t going to be an issue. I also use fluid film between the old man emu leafs since the squeak and it lasts a very long time. Fluid film is an active barrier that will creep back into spots after being scraped off which paint etc won’t do. It’s pretty cool stuff, there’s Youtube videos about doing this very thing.


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For Germany and up north, I went for the TimeMAX 100 & 300 wax treatment to frame and underbody for my LC.
 
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wire brush and tons of mike sanders, i drive a 30 year old hilux mk2 in very good condition, never used something else.

german video for mike sanders products:

 
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For me, living a few miles from the ocean, I had to take a day out of the weekend with a wire brush and angle grinder with a wire brush attachment to the underbody to clean it up good. Finished up with some flat black rust stop paint and it looked good as new. Just check it every few months to keep it in check.
 
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Wire brush and rust stop flat black paint have suited me well. You can go with a bedliner spray but make sure you clean it up very well before hand or you are just coating the rust.


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Lintnercorey said:
Buy a gallon of fluid film and a Hudson sprayer. They also have spray cans, that’s what I used for the inside of my frame rails when I mounted my sliders. I live in ca and don’t have to deal with road salt, but wanted to be sure the holes I drilled weren’t going to be an issue. I also use fluid film between the old man emu leafs since the squeak and it lasts a very long time. Fluid film is an active barrier that will creep back into spots after being scraped off which paint etc won’t do. It’s pretty cool stuff, there’s Youtube videos about doing this very thing.


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I second this one, this is what my dad does or has done to his Vehicles, he lives in NE Ohio, and they are terrible for what they use on the road, Calcium Chloride along with other stuff. He also whenever it gets warm for a day or so will go to a sprayer type car wash and spray the underside really well, then hot wax from the windows down and the underside.
 
I spray a mixture of 50/50 wd40 and 30 weight oil on the undercarriage of my 85 and 99 4 Runners. I live in SoCal so I don't have to deal with road salt but I do live by the ocean and everything get wet every night in the fall and winter months with dew, so rust is an issue here.
 
As already mentioned, Fluid Film is the way to go. It was originally created to protect pumps, motors, and other various equipment on the off shore oil rigs.
 
I used CRC undercoating on my old Ram and I've been wanting to buy some for my Tundra. It comes in aerosol cans. Spray on and it stays pliable. It doesn't harden like a lot of the bed coat sprays do.. I'll probably get some fluid film for inside my door shells and inner cab corners..This will require disassembling the interior to get to the body shell. I don't like drilling additional holes.
 
Fluid film is great, I’ve used POR15 on multiple classic car and Jeep restorations and had great success. Eastwood rust encapsulator is a really good product also.

I would strongly not recommend using and kind of bedliner/undercoat as it just seals in the rust and allows it to keep working.
 
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