I think I made a big mistake when I undertook the project of doing a "Bed Off" restoration of my '96 F-150 to stop what I thought was frame rust. The entire frame has a coating of rust so after removing bed and other access prep I started wire wheeling with a angle grinder only to find that everywhere I'm stripping the top layer of rust off with the wire wheel there's a good coating of some kind of softish black frame coating or something underneath. The wheel won't take it off but just sorta melts/smears it. No way would I have thought that this stuff was present when I looked at the frame. For all intents it really looked like the frame was rusting. My goal was only to stop rust and I'm not doing anything other than that. At this point I'm hoping to get some advice. Should I STOP where I'm at? i.e. the topcoat of rust is NOT an issue?

 

I ran into the same thing on my 92, there was a factory undercoating of some type that left the frame for the most part rust free, even with the states liberal use of road salt here in the winter. However the frame around some of the wheel wells and suspension components was rusty and flaking, as were the frame cross members. I would poke around with a screwdriver to see where the real rust is and grind that area down and treat it as necessary.

-Jon

 

After a little more wire wheeling I've found that the coatong is spotty. Some places thick and others non existant. So I'm just going to strip it with solvent and kerosene and wire wheel as much of as I can and then prep it for the Master Series Silver primer/sealer. Messy damn job though.