Grease to protect frame from rust

I work as a mechanic for a company that plows snow and spreads salt for many commercial lots. We use grease to cover electrical connections for plows and protect quick connects on hyd. lines for the salters. To say rust and corrosion on the salt trucks is a problem is a major understatement. The areas covered in grease hold up very well.

So I was thinking that in the fall before winter to clean the frame and let it dry well and then cover it with high viscocity grease. Has anyone done this? Any reason it would not work?

 

some of it will wash off in the rain as you drive so it has to be reapplied every year or sooner but it sure wouldn't hurt anything and will definitely stop any rust that's there from getting worse.

that said I think it would be better to just have it undercoated

 

I use grease .
Its not fun to apply and every time I change my oil I get a little slippery but I have 1 car wash where I live and they use recycled salt water when they are open . They dont open their doors unless its warm out . Warm out means anything warmer than negative 25 below zero . Needless to say , I havnt washed my truck in 3 months .

 

A lot of the rust issues occur inside the 'boxed' part of the frame. Greasing the outside won't help when it rusts from the inside.

Grease attracts dirt, can break down and/or wash off.

You're better off getting it painted or coated with a rust preventing type paint that will dry. But again... If it's a boxed frame, you gotta paint both the inside and outside.

 

Toyota did undercoat my frame a couple of years ago during the recall. There is not much of it left. Undercoating is much more expensive than buying a tub of waterproof thick grease and applying it each fall. I think my frame is a c shape so I could get both sides.

 

Its "C" profile at the back, but the middle and front are fully boxed. There are lots of wholes you can spray into, but not that you could spread grease through... Maybe you could heat the grease up so it liquifies and could be sprayed.

I used an eastwood frame coating on the inside of mine (comes with a 360 sprayer and long tube to get inside the frame). Its hard to know how its holding up on the inside, but it will have been a year in the spring since I applied it. This winter has been rough so it will be interesting to see how it all looks this spring.

 

Fluid film is what a lot of people use.