Part 2

With the sliders mostly cleaned up, I moved on to the frame. Some parts were worse than others, and the inside of the frame rails were pretty decent with the rust starting to show at the welds. Behind the rear bumper was the worst. Can't help but notice this space being perfect for a long range fuel tank, wish I had the coin to make that happen.

Anyways, pictures of the frame pre wire wheel:

Ramp/ jack stand method in progress:

Part 3 with post wire wheel pictures to follow.

 

Part 3

If you don't have one, a face shield really helps reduce the suck of wire wheeling the frame. Also, you'll want a respirator and good air flow as the rust in the air is oppressive, and you'll need one anyways for painting the frame. Also a decent floor creeper was worth the $40 they run on Amazon, you will spend hours in it to get this job done and worth it if this was the only job you use it for.

I also removed all the skid plates and fuel tank guards to allow access to the frame and cross members.

Pictures post wire wheel:

Hard to tell in the pictures, but a lot of rust came off this frame. I did not tackle the axles, control arms, or anything that wasn't the frame or could be replaced later if rust prevailed.

Part 4 coming with painting of the rust encapsulator.

 

Part 4

I prepped the frame and rock sliders with degreaser by wiping down all the surfaces I was going to paint. This prepped the surface, as well as was a good way to clean off any residual rust dust and grim that may not have been removed with the wire wheel.

The platinum rust encapsulator is a brush on only application, which sounds crappy but this stuff is serious and sticks to anything so wear gloves and keep and eye on where you drip and what you drip on. It also has a strong odor that can't be good for your brain, so I think aerosol would be really bad that way.

I started at the back and slowly worked my way around and under the FJ. Take your time, only paint the stuff you want to keep. With the brush application you can easily control where the coating is going and there is a significant lack of over spray. I did 2 coats, although one is probably sufficient. Even though it was brushed on This process will take a couple of hours and you'll want to take a brake for a cold one about halfway to give yourself some fresh air.

Pictures of painting on the encapsulator:

After I let the paint dry, I started taping off the holes in the frame on prep for the internal frame paint. You are going to want to leave a hole open every 12"-16" so you can use the can with the tube and work your way through the frame. I taped a wire onto the tube so that it could be easier to control when you are feeding it in and out of the frame. I would feed the tube in all the way, then start spraying as I slowly pulled it out. I also marked about an inch from the end of tube so I knew when to stop spraying before pulling the tube out of the frame. This greatly reduces the chance of spraying the coating all over yourself (this lesson was learned the hard way). It takes 2 cans to do an FJ frame IMO, I only bought one so hopefully the 1 can pulls its weight.

Pictures of holes prepped for internal paint:

And a picture of the spray can and wire taped to the hose to come in Part 4.

Also, satin frame paint to come in Part 4.

 

This is in fact Part 5, numbers are hard or there are too many parts to this post...

Part 5

Internal frame paint can set up with wire taped to it:

I got the extreme Eastwood hoping it would be tough and withstand winter. We will see how it holds up, but it did spray on nice. I did 2 really good coats allowing time to dry between. 2 cans was just enough for this.

Pictures post satin black frame paint:

I am very pleased with this color as I'm not a huge gloss black guy on 4x4 frames. The one problem with fresh paint on the frame is it makes all the other stuff around it look bad... Maybe it will bother me enough to repaint the suspension components.

All in all was about 30 hrs of work, but I think it will pay off in the long run. I will update this post after a year or so with ware, or if something comes up sooner.

Here is the pile of rust left on the shop floor after the project:

 

WOW, amazing work!! Your FJ is a very lucky dog.

Will you go over the paint with a wax/film coating? Cosmoline/AmsoilHD/3M Cavity Wax? Then over the top with Fluid Film? The glop on top will help prevent oxygen getting to the paint below (and to the steel below it, especially in the nooks and crannies the paint might not have gotten all of the way into).

 

Thank you.
I wasn't sure if more product was needed given both the encapsulator and the frame paint are designed to be stand alone solutions, but I do agree something to get into all the nooks and crannies would be a good idea. Any of the products above you would recommend over another? By the time I was finished with the paint I was pretty done looking at the frame for awhile, and that was just before this past winter. Probably time to reengage the project.

 

Can you add a few pics showing how it looks after the winter?

 

I used the Eastwood Internal Frame Rust Coating as well...I used 4 full cans and that was just enough. I did the crossmembers, front bumper and rear bumper too. Just an FYI for others as your usage may vary depending on the speed you pull the tube out of the frame as you spray. You can't see what you are spraying so it's all subjective so do your research and watch some videos to make your decision. I originally thought 3 might be enough but ordered 4 just in case...glad I did. More is better than not enough.
Another tip...get a big fan and use it to help blow the dust away from you.

 

"I wasn't sure if more product was needed"

protection against rust is a matter of layers, all of them will tend to fail over time so each one protecting the layer below adds greatly to that overall time span

 

Great thread! Also agree that Eastwood rust prevention products are excellent. Living in VT I spend a LOT of time battling rust every year, and will def try their internal frame coating this time...whenever it manages to warm up here 😫

 

So crawled under the FJ last night and took some photos of the frame best I could without jacking it up and taking off the wheels. In summary it looks like coatings are holding up alright after 1 winter. Seeing some rust coming out of the holes in the frame, some by the welds, and the rock sliders. Not surprised on the rock sliders, those were pretty rough but wanted to post pone the $300 to get a new set with a few hours of work. Frame isn't perfectly clean, and had to use flash so looks as bad as it can.

Focus in the next few weeks will be doing a film coating over it all, my dad has hobbies in the airplane industry and says all those guys use a special oil-like coating that stops rust incredibly well on airplane parts as well as used to prevent corrosion in electrical connectors. He is bringing me a gallon and I'll give that a go. Once I get it, I'll post how I applied it and how it holds up. Focus there will be on the inside of the frame (which I did a poor job coating the first go around).

Pictures of the frame as of last night:

Lots of the frame still looks really good, but definitely would recommend doing a coating of something on top off the paint like mentioned above.

 

Thanks for posting the updated pics. I will be dealing with mine in the near future.

 

I usually take mine in for a professional Fluid Film spray after I finish my Fall paint touch up, but interested in the wax-based aircraft stuff OP mentions.
My big sanding/scraping/painting job is every Spring, to clean up winter’s ravages. So far this strategy has prevented problems, just have surface rust which is impossible to totally prevent, given where I live.

Thanks for posting product info and post-painting update!

 

Good post! I'm so glad I live in south Texas where using salt on the roads is a rare occurrence. I still clean and paint,,,, got the Eastwood internal but have yet to apply.

 

Thanks for the detailed post!

 

Joined 4 days ago and posted this writeup... you are the future of the forum. Thanks for this nice detailed thread!