Well it only took two winters for my jeep’s undercarriage to succumb to the elements of Maine’s diverse climate.   Accustomed to being put up in the winters, my ’97 tj was given a nice wakeup call of how quickly the oxidation process can begin to eat away at a perfectly nice piece of steel. At first I never thought anything of it, but as time passed and I grew forever fonder of the jeep culture, I soon realized that I needed to do something about this problem.

Flakes, shards, whole pieces of steel 3” long were quickly catching my attention whenever I would put eye around the frame of my jeep.  So if you don’t have any plans of moving that tub off of your frame, then here’s a solution that I’d recommend. A simple solution would be to just spray or apply some sort of grease or oil around your undercarriage, I even tried using rubberized undercoating, but after one winter, there wasn’t much to show for it. So I decided that I wanted to do this right, I not only wanted to rust proof my jeep, but I wanted to make my jeep a little more aesthetically pleasing too and here’s how I did it.

Like every vehicle owner here in Maine, I had a major case of rust infecting every piece of metal of my jeep.   I read many threads about rust preventatives and every time I went into a thread, someone was there saying that if you wanted to do the job right, then you had to go with POR-15. So I did, for $145 total, I bought two quarts of paint, ½ gallon of “metal ready” and a quart or “marine cleaner” off of ebay and started one of my many summer projects. Basically, I decided that if it didn’t move and wasn’t already protected from oil, then it was going to be rust proofed.

Now the POR-15 sales representatives claim that the true way to achieving success with this product is to follow the “3 step process” basically to make it short, you use a degreaser (an acid marine cleaner), a rust neutralizer(a base called metal ready), and then you can paint away! To properly cover all the parts underneath your jeep with two coats, I’d recommend purchasing the very same quantities of POR-15 product that I did.  You can also dilute the marine cleaner with water up to a 10:1 ratio.  I used a 4:1 ratio and still have the cleaner hanging around, however, it makes a great engine cleaner. Now here’s what you have to do:

It’s important to remember that many frames, like the ones one our jeeps, have a problem of rusting from the inside out. It would be a good idea to flush your frames with a hose every couple months to help keep the sand, dirt and mud out of there.  I decided that with major rust pieces caught up within the frame of my jeep,  to drill 1 ¼” holes on a couple low points of the frame to help not only get the larger pieces of rust out, but to also help the frame drain whenever mud or water gets back into it. (PLEASE REMEMBER: this is just what I did, you do not have to drill holes into your frame. I might have changed the entire structural integrity of the frame’s strength. However, this was my decision and you can decide what you would like to do.)

Moving on, using a wire brush, go ahead and clean off the dust and smaller corroded pieces of rust that aren’t salvageable. With POR-15, the more rust, the better! Then using a hose or power washer, you can try to push all the rust, sand, and dirt out of the frame through the larger holes on the side of the frame or through the holes at the bottom of the frame that you’ve just drilled, and don’t forget to spray down everything else that you’re going to paint. Since you’re probably not going to be able to paint the inside of your frame, just wait until rest of the body parts that you plan to paint are dried before proceeding to the next step.

Now with the body dry, take your diluted marine cleaner and start spraying away! I went to the dollar store and picked up a couple spray bottles for this, even though spray nozzles are provided in the packaging if you buy a POR-15 kit. Let it sink in for 15 minutes and then rinse off and wait till the parts are dry again to proceed to the next step. I recommend wearing kitchen gloves and eyewear as the cleaner is acidic and isn’t too fun on your hands or in your eyes.

Again with the parts dry, start spraying away with your metal ready! Same idea as applying the marine cleaner, however this time you want to make sure that all the parts remain moist and the metal ready doesn’t dry! So be sure to constantly check everything every couple of minutes. It helps to do this if you’re in the shade and it’s a little humid out. Once the 15 minutes has passed, go ahead and rinse everything off again and allow the metal to completely dry. It’s very important that you allow everything to be completely bone dry before applying the paint. A good way to test whether you were successful in preparation is by looking at rusted piece of the frame that you plan to paint, a whitish, pale color should be present on the metal. This means that the rust has been properly neutralized.
               

Now it’s time for the fun! While at the dollar store I picked up some brushes and a paint tray. Also, stop in at a local paint store and buy an extended radiator paint brush as this will come in handy for the hard to reach spots. Also, while you’re painting, be sure not to paint over bolt and nuts! The strength of this paint is very impressive and you’re going to have problems loosening bolts if they’ve been painted over. Well enough talking lets show some results!

When I decided to do this I made one mistake, and that was not wearing gloves, let me tell you now, this stuff sticks to your skin for at least a week!  And be sure that you wear your “garage clothes” too. Now in my case, I had some major rust, so I bought the POR-15 silver paint, which contains small pieces of metal that fill in any holes within the rust.

Now with POR-15 silver added painted! You can really see the difference when the pictures are placed side-by-side!

Just about the time I finished the first coating, the spots that I had started on were already “tacky” and I could leave a fingerprint on them, so I immediately started the second coat of paint. In total, you should anticipate a good 2-4 hours for painting the first coat, and about an hour or so to paint the second coat and to add any finishing touches.

Now, one problem with the POR-15 is that the paint is not UV resistant, therefore, after some time exposed to the sun, the paint color will begin to fade. Now the strength and adhesion of the paint doesn’t change it’s just the color. So I bought some Rustoleum Semi-Gloss Black rattle cans from Wal-mart for a top coat.

I decided that I liked the silver pumpkin and went back out and bought some Rustoleum silver.

I had about ¾ of the second quart of paint left, I painted my new bumper and some other miscellaneous parts as well.  It’s been almost 6 months since I did this little project and everything is still in great condition. I’ve actually managed to penetrate the paint in a couple places on my differential cover from hitting rocks on the trials, but other than that, I’ve been happy with the results!  So that pretty much sums it up, if you have any questions feel free to send me a message @ kdukes4. Thanks for reading, good luck, and have some fun with it!

Kyle

More information on POR-15 and related products produced by POR-15 can be found at www.POR15.com.