Even if the car doesn't see anymore salt for the rest of its life, the metal in its panels is still contaminated and corrupted by what it has seen. As for exorcism being another term for cut and replace the dead metal, yeah.
Nick
Nick
That's looking pretty darn good. Obviously you can get as crazy as you want with it, but I'd rinse it really well, put some Eastwood Encapsulator over the area and I doubt it'll become a problem again so long as there isn't water getting inside and soaking the carpet.
Cutting and replacing is a rabbit hole you don't want (or need) to go down.
What sorts of long term pain do I open myself up to there? It would seem to me I'd be introducing new places to start rot from.
You mean by cutting and replacing metal?
Yes it likely would create new places for rust to start. Especially if you overlap the panels instead of doing it all nice and pretty and butt welding them.
And it gets borderline obsessive. BT,DT. My adopted rule of thumb is if I can't poke through it with a screwdriver, I'm not replacing it.
You'll never eradicate all of the rust, short of a rotisserie restoration. Even then, blasting doesn't clean the insides of panels or between pinch welds and seams. At some point you have to know when to call it good enough. Is it gonna rust again? Of course, eventually everything does. Will it be an issue in your lifetime or mine? Likely not.
I don't know exactly how you intend on using this truck, but unless you intend to park it in a museum with mirrors underneath of it, I wouldn't start cutting metal out.
This will be the plow truck/winter beater. It is going to be the one that gets exposed to salt and I will probably battle with the rust to prolong its life. I expect I'll be an old fart by the time it's not usable, that or I'll get bored and replace it with something else before that time comes. But there is a hole in it if you look closely, it's in the center raised rib.
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