Am I paranoid? (Rust)

Hey Guys!

So I am prepping to put in my new leafs and today i decided to look under the truck, and although the entire frame as a hole looks great, even more so for being from Pennsylvania, I noticed that the end of my frame behind where the shackle goes were pretty rusted. I hit them with a hammer and they were solid as a rock. I guess I am a little paranoid about rust, after seeing posts on here about rust issues...


Heres the pic I took not to long ago.




I hit the frame on both sides and in all different places to see if the rust actually corroded through at any points, but it didnt. I would assume that this area is one of the more rusty on the tacoma's because the wheels are right there kicking up all that good salt and water during the winter...

More so just inquiring to see what you guys think, and I have done alot of work on my truck in the last year, and even went to toyota for an emergency visit where they had to pull the bed off and they said the frame was solid. I had broken down on the side of the road because my fuel pump died and ended up getting towed to the local toyota dealer last summer. And between that and a new rack and pinion plus the new cat back exhaust I put in, the frame is nearly rust free! (aside from the rear)

Thanks for your opinions guys!

 

You can always sand it down and paint it with rustolium to protect it from further corrosion.

 

Get ahead of that before its too late.

 

Look at my thread "RUST DISCOVERY". Yours looks worse than mine. Toyota can't be trusted for this issue. The frame in my thread was toyota recall coated in 2010, look at it now. Your bed should come off easily if it has been done recently. Very easy to do. You can't inspect properly without taking bed off. GL and lets see pic after bed removal.

 

Andy,


I will send some pictures today, I took the one on this forum late last night. The rust on my frame now in that location is not the same type of corrosion that you had on your frame. There is no holes in the frame, it appears to be just surface rust because when I was tapping it with a hammer last night I felt no soft spots in that area. When Toyota took the bed off the truck last summer, it looked fine when I saw it then. I will check it out later today/tomorrow. The rest of the frame is almost rust free, aside for some surface rust. But I think what is going on is just superficial because the structural integrity of the frame in that location is good. I will check it out, if its worse then expected Toyota will be getting a call. Luckily its a 2003 and is covered until March 2018!!

 

Agreed, but toyota doesn't care. Your truck frame might be fine , but it is on it's way to a bad place for sure. Probably will last till recall ends. That's all they care about. I went back to corporate and they wouldn't do anything to satisfy me. Selling trucks with a shelf life of 15 yrs! Yours leaf mounts and leafs look worse than surface rust to me anyway. That is cancer that needs attention. My frame was also recoated by toyota! Just sayin...

 

I actually contacted toyota on friday, I will most likely take it in for them to look at. But yeah I will have a better idea of whats goin on when I put the new leafs in this coming weekend. I looked under the truck today and the leaf mounts are surface rust

 

Yeah that's awesome. GL