My buddy swore by using old motor oil for rust prevention on frame rails

Tried it on my 97 F-150 frame last fall and now I've got a sticky, grimy mess that trapped moisture and rusted worse than before. Anyone else have a homebrew fix that backfired this bad?

3 comments

3 Comments

jones.angela28d ago

Did you wire brush all the loose rust off first before you slathered that oil on?

wendy_bell8328d ago

Oh honey, you're not wrong but "loose rust" isn't really the thing you need to worry about with this kind of surface. If it's got that surface rust but it's still solid underneath, you don't have to go crazy with a wire brush. What you really need to do, @jones.angela, is just knock off the flaky stuff and get it down to where the metal is still stable. People get too caught up in getting every speck off and end up making a bigger mess than they started with. The oil will soak in and seal it up just fine as long as the big pieces are gone.

torres.leo28d ago

My buddy tried that once and ended up with rust bleeding through his paint job three months later because he skipped the wire brush. He was pissed, had to strip it all down and start over.