How to Remove Rust From your Truck/Trailer Undercarriage
How to Remove Rust From your Truck/Trailer Undercarriage
Posted on November 22, 2022
Constant exposure to the weather’s elements can result in the rusting of your truck or trailer undercarriage. Rust is a brown coloration on metal surfaces that can result in some damage. Treating rust immediately is essential because it can cause holes in your vehicle.
Truck rust removal isn’t as complicated as it sounds. You will be fine if you follow these five easy steps:
1. Find a flat hard surface and raise your car. Since you're working with the bottom of your vehicle, you would want to raise your car using a jack. Ensure that you know how to use a jack.
2. Check the corrosion level. You will need to ascertain what level of rusting the vehicle has. To do this, you’ll need to go under the vehicle. There are three common levels of rusting in a vehicle: surface rusting, penetration rusting, and scale rusting.
3. Depending on the type of rust that you’ve found under your car, you’ll need the following:
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- Sandpaper to remove surface rust. Surface rust is the easiest to remove of them all. You sand down until the metal is clean and visible. Remember to cover your nose and mouth with a mask to avoid inhaling any pieces of the metal.
- A wire brush to remove scale rust. After sanding down the surface with scale rust, you’ll need to brush it using the wire brush until you see the bare metal. Using only sandpaper with scale rust won’t suffice because the damage is much more severe than surface rust.
- With penetration rusting, you will need metal patches to cover the holes. You can cut off damaged or corroded metal pieces. You could either replace the affected areas with new parts or cover them with cut-out metal pieces by welding them.
4. Remove any wax or grease. After getting rid of the rust, you will need a towel and a grease remover to remove any grease and wax. This will assist with removing any heavy grime that you can’t scrap off.
5. Apply some rust converter. Usually, some spots of rust will remain even after following the whole process step by step. Applying a rust converter then completes the job by covering those metal surface areas that still have little bits of rust.
How to Keep Your Vehicle Rust Free
Trailer rust removal can be a nightmare, and after going through the whole process of removing the rust, you want to know how to keep your undercarriage rust-free. You can do this by avoiding driving in puddles or any dirty water on the road, frequently inspecting and cleaning the vehicle undercarriage, and applying a rust-free formula that’ll rubberize or contain a rust-proofing element.