Gunk between chassis Rails.

Hi Dudes,

well i am in the early stages of painting my chassis, i have seen a DVD where KW had put selastic in beteen the chassis rails, looked at mine and thought the same, to try and stop water/ dust/ crap to stop rusting away, getting in between them, now these rails start the back of the cab and end short of the end of the back of the truck,

reading the previous post on the acidity of selastic what would be the best thing to squeeze between the crack between the outside rail and the inside rail, in some sections there is a large gap/others is narrow, just want to squeeze some thing to fill this gap then paint over it

i know there are heaps of smarty pants out there.

-Monty

Hey Monty,

My five cents worth....I wouldnt put anything in the gap to seal it up until after you have painted it if at all.
Paint doesnt like silastic and will end up looking horrible.
Chassis wasnt sealed up before and its okay so why change it.
Trouble with sealing them up unless you can get a 100% seal water will still get in and could make it worse cos it cant get out / dry out.

Basil

Mr GM.

5 cents worth is ok, should add GST, your probably right, water wont be able to get out and will be worse,

-Monty

what would be the best thing to squeeze between the crack between the outside rail and the inside rail, in some sections there is a large gap/others is narrow, just want to squeeze some thing to fill this gap then paint over it

Fishoil, Monty. Gallons and gallons of Fishoil Rod.

(for some reason, the ladies with us just don't like fishoil. Can't imagine why )

Monty, Baz is bang on. If you seal up those rails, you'll never see any problems until they start separating. Clean them up as best you can - sandblaster, needles, wirebrush, whatever works - and then do as Rod says before painting. Without splitting the rails you won't get them 100% spotless but you'll stop anything in there and be able to keep an eye on things. Just don't use anything silicone-based as your painting will be a waste of time!

Hi Monty i want to take down another line when i sepparated my spring leaves and after and cleaning them i coated each leaf in gravited grease and then they were together i painted them and seal it this has wrok real good. Dave

Monty
If the rails are cleane and rust/grime free you can use a high build epoxy primer on them this will fill and seal any small openings
ihave used JOTUN products for all my machinery resto jobs with great results
I always use etch primer as a base on all jobs this helps to stop rust on stone chips
Ihope this helps BANDITT

Thanks Bandit.

The Chassis rails, or one rail has been sandblasted and primed.
2nd rail has been drilled out to go inside 1st rail, truck only came with one rail used 2nd rail due to a few bad cracks.

so the two rails are bolted in painted in primer, not an etch primer, just bog standard wattle grey primer.

i am preparing to paint, have all the bits pulled of except for the diffs , cross members, suspension, will be using a high build primer but cant get to paint the inside chassis as it is all bolted up but there are a few cracks that i could dribble some stuff in, its a bit late for gravited grease or grease nipples or to give the insides a good going over with high build primer, was just hoping there was some solution to patch it up before i paint.

if i only had thought of this before putting it back together 2 years ago.


-Monty

Howdy All....continuing on with this chassis gunk discussion I got a huge surprize on the weekend.
Ive started stripping down my big boof head GMC to resto and after lifting the big scissor lift body of it ive discovered everything is covered in a thick coat of this stinky tar stuff. Its been sprayed on and its 1/4 think in places. Smells like crude oil.
I scraped some off and the chassis underneath is like brand new.
The other surprise was the old girl has a triple skin chassis which ive never seen before. Total of the three skins is 1-3/8" thick....no wonder we struggled getting the big sucker on the float...
Basil