i've got a 17 y.o. rust free Highlander.  maybe i'm not a yankee or something

We have a company 05 ram diesel 2500 that's just now showing rust around one of the wheel wells It has about 275k on it, and runs great.

The yankee standard

By the time you see little rust bubbles in the paint, the metal behind it is gone.  Happened to my Bronco, and my WJ.   Fuck pinch welds.

"minor rust" means that the paint is holding the body together.  

I've noticed that.

Eric O is the man.  'Money Light' for the win.

My car is 12 yrs old
No rust

I don’t own a US made metal pos. Swedish master race.

Salt sucks.

<shudder>

Back in the day, before rust proofing, front wheel drive and ABS, winter rats (beater cars ) were the thing because not only was the salt going to eat your car alive,  but odds were that somebody was going to lose control and slide into you or visa versa.

There are poorer counties in upstate NY that use sand instead of salt. The roads suck and your car gets absolutely filthy.

I just happened to have that up on the lift when the thread started.

Mine had 1/4 of that when it was on your lift, and I said "Nooooooope! Selling it, and buying something that's lived within a 100 mile radius all it's life!" I didn't even want to buy something that was too close to the Gulf.

Why anyone would live here and needlessly put up with that kind of bullshit on their vehicle, escapes me. Dude needs to flip that shit, and get him a Texas Jeep.

BTW, have you been able to bust out that cool induction heater toy of yours on it yet?

Shit.  I just looked up where his shop is.  I've probably driven past it a number of times.  I used to work in Naples, which isn't too far north of Avoca.

I guess the only upside is our cheap registration. 5200lb WK2 hovers around $100 for 2 years, the SRT-4 is $65'ish.  But, our insurance rates more than make up for that.    I bet we have more car dealers per square mile than vegas has hookers.

Ha... I just looked at his Amazon page.  Why the fuck is there such a small tube of antiseize on there?  Gotta buy that shit by the bucket.  If you remove a bolt, paint it before you put it back.  Even stainless.

Maybe in your area.

Not yet. Its here because it will not stop.

Here's my 2000 TJ, same area.  Taken about 5 minutes ago.

Attached File

That's about par for something that has seen mud and dirt around here.

I put a lot of miles on mine. Like 190,000 when I traded it.  Think it was 7 years old.  There was some surface rust started on the unibody frame in a few places, but the body was rust free.  I never washed it much in the winter and didn't baby it either.  Really well made vehicle.

well the 4.0 is probably still fine, anyway

Lived it's life in DFW, with trips offroad throughout OK and AR.

Within ten years the frame of my Chevy 2500 was so rusted I had to have metal plates welded onto the frame to keep it together. About four years ago the frame got so bad that there was no more metal to weld onto to keep the front end attached.

The only place on the entire truck that had zero rust was the front of the bed. That is where I had a diesel tank installed.

Nitrile gloves ftmfw.  And, I found the bigger bottle of it on the page... guess I was scrollin' too fast.    I painted every bolt on my silver SRT silver, glad it already matched.

The frame of my 94 bronco was still good when I sold it a couple years ago.  The body was falling apart, though.  gaps between the fenders and doors were changing, rockers that had wires running thru them got cut.  O/D button on the shifter stopped working.

It looks like it

I've used Fluid Film with good results. A can per vehicle per year keeps the rust away. Fluid Film is not Marco approved like Trucoat.

a wash?  paint isnt structural.

What the fuck did I just post back there a bit?    OUR paint is structural.

Yup NY inspection is a breeze.  New England is absurd they fail you for rusty outer body panels.  My 4runner frame is on its last patch job and I flunked for relatively minor rust on the rockers. This vehicle will be lucky to make it another 6 months it's frame is so rusty.  So a little spray foam and some reinforced filler good to go for one more inspection.

How many toyota pickups were bought back due to the ability to punch holes in the frame with a paperclip?  

I forgot that. my bad

I read of one Chevy 2500 that had plates welded on the frame until there was nothing left.  About 10 years old.

They don't last long.

By now... an 08-10 super duty the bed rails are Swiss cheese
Cars? As in unibody shit boxes?
Lots of subframes deteriorating.
Brake lines.
Trans cooler lines.
Power steering lines. Oh those were the best. Gotta pull the cab to do a short block or head gaskets? Get that fitting to turn and watch it split wide open because rust.

And fuck the engineer who came up with quick connect fittings for trans cooler lines.

It makes being flat rate.... interesting.

You learn how to be surgical with an oxygen acetylene torch, your best friend is a cookie wheel/grinder, turbo sockets, a 5 foot long pry bar known as a West Virginia tooth pick, and a big fucking hammer.

And to hell with PB blaster....
You need BG inforce. PB blaster is pussy shit.

Between road salt induced rust and pot holes killing front ends...

There's a reason I refused to do alignments unless I was installing either a lift kit, or a whole new front end.

I used to shred tie rod sleeves.
Seriously. I was the only mechanic you would find in the shop that would yell FUCK NO to an RO that said. Customer requests 4 wheel alignmemt.

Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.

Go fuck yourself. No. Not just no. But fuck no.

You need bunker buster penetration. Rust laughs at PB blaster.

I would come home and take a shower immediately. I was always covered in a mixture of
Diesel.
Grease.
Diesel oil.
Rust.
Dirt.
Road salt.

Oh and fuck safety glasses. Get safety goggles. That seal your eyes completely.
I had an air hammer going once on something that didn't want to cooperate with my BFH...
Shot a piece of rust back, it hit my eye brow, ricocheted into the cunt hair gap between my eyes and safety glasses, bounced off the inside of the glasses and straight into my eye. 2 days. 2 fucking days at the ophthalmologists to get it drilled out.

Yeah. Good times... head in a vice. Eyes dialated. Dude says. Hold still. Breath. Relax. Hooked up to an EKG monitor.
Puts like paper clips in your eye lids holds your eye lids wide open. No matter how hard you try to squeeze them shut. Nope....
Then he takes this ungodly bright ass light and fires up the die grinder. Ohh you haven't fucking lived until you see this drill bearing down on your eyeball.

I can take alot of pain. But fuck getting rust embedded into your eye.
That's not the bad part. The bad part is drilling it out. Followed by the doc polishing your eye.

Fuck road salt.
Fuck cheap customers who don't wash their shit after road salt has been thrown down.
Fuck NY MA CT DOT for having pot holes big enough to swallow buicks.
Fuck Ford Motor company for using regurgitated metal with sadomasochist/retard engineers
Fuck any service writer and/or manager that won't use M-Time because Rust.
I don't give a fuck what that book says. Does it see rust? No? Pay me or it goes outside.

Yeah, try and weasel their way out after you just spent hours drilling, tapping, welding, etc.

It blew the guys minds down here when I got a NY plate expedition with a 5.4 for exhaust manifolds.
What are you doing with the mig welder?

Watch and learn.
Watch. And. Learn.

This is how we do things in NY.
Bzzzttttt.... bzzztttt... dig those manifold studs out in minutes opposed to hours.

Drill bits? MSC was my best friend. I was using bits for CNC mills to bore through rust, crust, and tempered steel/tempered stainless.

6.4 exhaust manifolds are a blast. Especially when the bolts rot the heads off but the shanks are buried in the head. Ohhh those are fun.
I have the tap for them. Special threads.

Everyone wants a 7.3 until the oil pan rots off.
That's a gravy job.

Boomer tard techs be shouting like.
YOU NEED TO PULL THE MOTOR AND TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN TO GLUE THE PAN ON! IT WILL NEVER SEAL!

Oh? You want to bet your paycheck against mine?

Drain the oil. Pull the oil filter.
Pop the transmission out.
Undo the engine mount nuts.
Pull the fan shroud and upper radiator hose.
Get 3 pole jacks/dead mans.
Lower the truck so the jacks grab the dog ears on the block and the crank pulley.
Go down some more.
Zip the bolts out. Get a razor blade cut the glue.
Smack the rusty pan with a mallet to get it moving.
Reach in, undo the pickup tube bolts.
Pick up tube drops skate the pan out. Grab rags and your die grinder with a brown cookie wheel.
You want to stuff the rags around between the rods, main webbings, etc you don't want this shit working it's way into the block and to get its way to the IPR or HPOP or into the injectors.

Zip the remnants of the oil pan glue off.
Douche with brake clean.
Wipe down.
Grab your new pan, zip the paint off the pan rails with the cookie wheel. Douche with brake clean.

Electrical gremlins. They're the best. Nothing like scotch locks and green fuzzy wires.
I was never a fan of ohming circuits out.
Nah. Fuck that. Unplug the connector from the module. Go to the component that is inoperable pull the connector there. Ground a light bulb and send 12v down the line. If that light doesn't light up... you know the problem is before that component. Work your way back. Often times green fuzzy wires were culpable for the wife backing into the husbands new king ranch on the PAM sensors. And why the active cruise didn't work or why the wife blitzed something when pulling into a parking space.

Just think... they want autonomous cars...
Hehe. Wait until those sensors that act like eyes get a little green in the pigtail/harness/connector pins...
Let that resistance change ever so slightly to make it go blind.
Think highway fatalities are high now? Pfft. The north east will have death tolls in the 100s of thousands with autonomous cars having sensors giving a false reading back to the module due to the circuit resistance changing.
Modules act as volt meters and programmed strategy just takes that voltage drop of 5v out x.xv returning to make an output...

Just wait for a little green wire.
Think the Toyota runaway recall was bad... hold the autonomous driving cars beer.

In rust we trust.
Corrosion = pay check erosion. Unless you stand firm in getting paid for every second you have into it.
Oh!

And because NYers get cold winters... want to laugh?
Wait for some retard detailer to power wash under the hood and get the CJB soaked... and parks it out side. By the time the salesman is ready to demonstrate how sync works, the water will have made its way into the fuse block. Freeze. Crack the bus bar internal to the CJB/BJB and now you have a 50 60k+ yard ornament. And you're ripping the entire vehicle apart to replace the entire wiring harness because the cock sucker penny pinchers at Ford decided it would be best to make a fuse block integral to the harness. Saves them $.05 in a plastic connector.

Plus they can sell you a much more expensive harness too. And since backyard barney can't be trusted with much beyond an earl change, it's getting done at the dealer.

Between that and the daddy's money brodozer that went to mud jam and junior kicked a rock or branch through the felt fender liner and sling mud/water in to the BJB/CJB or road salt...
I replaced too many of those harnesses in 11+ super duties.

All because the fuckers wanted to save a buck in production costs. Built Ford tough! Own work!
Well. I can say. They do make outstanding products for the north east. Many a dairy farmer, contractor, arborist etc, can be found out standing behind it waiting for the tow truck.

It literally was a 50/50 shot of a crank no start or no crank no start being either from a mechanical fuck up or an electrical gremlin.
Most notorious code was for the DPF trap sensor in 6.4s...

I've seen many guys get burnt by that one.
I'd always tell them. Check connector C110 on the drivers side spring tower. The problem is almost always right there.
If it's throwing a CEL and the code is for the trap sensor/pressure sensor, pull data logger and look at that and your temps. Don't go shotgunning a DPF in there. A plugged DPF will show a significant temperature split between the EGT sensors and will lock the truck out for 45 minutes. Unless you pull that wire on the passengers side fender and jump start it with that...

Before all that? Check oasis see if the cab ever came off. Chances are someone broke the lock tab to that connector and your pins will be corroded or the wires going back will be corroded.

But it needs a DPF!
Bull shit. I've seen plugged DPFs. I used to go out and melt snow banks with them doing a commanded regen.
It's a wire or pin. DPFs don't just go bad... if that DPF sensor code exists look at that connector first and Unplug the connector at the sensor. Plug your light in at the connector. Send 12 v down to the circuits on that sensor. If it barely lights up or is very dim... bingo. Load test that bitch over lay the circuit and ship it. Replace pins if need be. Pack it with dielectric grease. If C110 lock tabs are broken and customer doesn't want to snag one from the junkyard? Zip ties. Run those fuckers home tight. There's enough space to get between wires without chafing them.

You might Laugh.

It's fixed many a truck where someone before me broke the lock tabs and that and road salt created the problem for the customer...

I just don’t get this
Maybe the older cars has rust issues but the have gotten a lot better.  Part of it is taking care of your vehicles.
I have a 2001 (18 years old) Nissan Frontier without a spec of rust on it. Body looks like the day I bought it. Also my 2011 (8 years old) Ram looks like new.
Both trucks have never seen a garage and were always parked outside on my gravel driveway.
Wash it, wax it, take care out it and they last

That's normal.
Wranglers rot bad around the rear shackles and well, wherever critical suspension components mount.
You should have seen the cool trick Tacomas, Sequoias, and T100s used to do.

And everyone wants one...

Dodge pickups...
I never gave dodge pickups a chance. 3-5 years with religious washing after a snow storm, the body would be cancerous.

Think I'm kidding?
Craigslist Albany NY and take a gander at an 03-12 ram private sale.
If it's at a used lot? Chances are it's either A southern truck or A bondo bucket

And then there was the F150 gas tank straps.
The crown vic/towncar/grand marquis steering shafts.
The wind bag recall.

Here ya go, get some brackets/bandaids for the subframes where the control arm bolts to.
Here's some really good glue. Glue those fuckers on. And run the bolts home tight. And here's 2 more brackets for the rear axle to glue on and PM15
Or a new rear axle if it cracked.

Those just started coming back in with a front wheel torn off and puking Trans fluid from the front axles tearing out of the transmission.

Then there was the free star recall. Glue in floor panel pieces! It's for the children's seat belts...

Beds get beaten.

Years of hauling firewood, totes of oil, having a hole cut in it for a goose neck hitch, having said goose neck trailers dropped on the bed.

The bed had several deep dents in it.  Shit happens, I own a farm, I do forestry side work and I own an oil company. It gets used, to do truck things.

My semi-trucks with double frames get rust so bad between the frames, it checks the steel rather harshly after about 10 years. We typically have to remove the tank and put the tank on a new cab and chassis then.  Which is why I've bought so far this year, 14 Semi-trucks.

Peterbilt rear end housing last about 10 years before they rot out.

I'll be the first to say, I'm fucking so happy that ford went to Aluminium bodies.  At least it won't rot out from this shit. Just the service bodies on my trucks will now. But those are easily repairable.

Five years is not so bad.

Ten years and you have frame rot, rotted brake lines, bad grounds in the electrical systems, drive shafts maybe.   Any lip like around wheel wells that caught salt water are eaten through.

It’s only gotten worse as the state uses more potent salts than sodium chloride now.   Counties use the high test and old fashioned salt.   Most towns use salt and sand.

Before my Dad retired as a police chief his department had a small fleet of identical Crown Vic Police Interceptors.

For many years he had it in his budget to wash his cruisers every week at the local car wash during the winter months. During the spring and summer months a trustee would wash them.

One year the budget committee vetoed his car wash line item, saying it was frivolous. He continued to have two of the cruisers washed every week out of his own pocket, and two of them didn't get washed.

The two cars that didn't get a regular undercarriage washes during the winter rotted from the frame out and eventually wouldn't pass inspection.

Sample size of only four, but the difference was striking.

Oh, and after presenting pics and two failed inspection reports to the budget committee Dad got his wash budget line item back

You'd love chevy trucks from 00-07 classic.

All those brake lines to run...

I used to draw the line when either, there's nothing healthy left to the frame or the brake lines are porous/really crusty.

Or the body got cancer. Bad.

They salt the fuck out of the roads.

Salt+water+steel=rust.

Newer cars get special coatings and they're required otherwise they turn to shit in record time.

Aluminum doesn't rot? Ever see the hoods and tailgates of expeditions?

I have a 37 year old Heil MC306 4 compartment tanker still on the road.  The barrel looks brand new still. Only thing rusted is the sub frame, because... It's fucking steel.

Most of my tank bodies range from the late 80s to the late 90s.

You take your experiences. I'll take mine.

I hate rust, but there's not much you can really do about it around here. It often makes an easy job a total PITA.

Just last weekend I spent way too fucking long replacing a wheel bearing on my truck.