PSA: Wash that dust off your truck after visiting the potash mines!

Goethite, hematite and limonite FTW!

A lot of people live on the skirts of the Paradox salt anticline and haven't noticed rust developing in days like that. It's got to be driving in the corrosive potash.

 

How deep are those ponds? I didn't think you could drive thru them.

 

I didn't actually drive through them. (I swear I'm not that dumb!) The photos are from a flying camera. The ponds are all fenced off.

I think it was just the salty dust in proximity to the ponds that caused the damage. Also, it looks liks there might be a stream of runoff that you splash through as you circle the mine area, I see it on satellite view. I don't remember that part, but I was pretty overwhelmed by the place and maybe not paying the most attention to the road.

Definitely though, potash brine is insanely corrosive. It's not your standard road salt.

 

Salt do what salt do...even living here in CA I've done a few trips up to Pismo beach to camp/offroad in the beach dunes. After just one 2 day trip up there my sliders, armor and any cheap accessory bolt on my truck was coated in surface rust. I avoid places like that as much as I can now, but even out here we have areas where salt can get you. Dry lake beds, sand dunes, even a few mountain communities that use road chemicals during winter.

Always best to wash the truck asap if you do go through something like this, leaving it on there for such a long time is why it got so bad for ya.

 

Exactly.

 

Thanks for the heads up.

 

Ah yes, i was recently in New Mexico’s “white sands national monument.” We ran into a pretty gnarly sand storm. Long story short, by the time I made it back to Cali, everything was orange lol. Pretty crazy how fast things rust. I could’ve sworn I painted things well but I found rust in some really odd places.

 

Well timed thread revival... I just ordered some raptor liner and here's why:

So last year I wound up painting essentially my whole frame with POR15 and a spray overcoat. Didn't actually remove the cab, but jacked it up enough to do the top edges too. Needed new new cab bushings anyway. Also gusseted my motor mounts while I was in there. And regeared while I had the driveline removed. About the only thing I didn't get to was the inside frame behind the fuel tank. Gotta save something for someday.




Ceramic painted the exhaust...




Rear axle... also replaced the shoes and drums.


Lol this was too heavy for me to lift, had to raise it with slings and a jack...


Motor mounts...


Sliders...

Oh and I replaced most of the screws, nuts, and washers with stainless steel along the way. Downside is that the stainless screws take a different wrench size, 1mm larger, but I'm used to it now.



So a year later, how do things look?

Mostly brand new. This is great!

BUT... the POR15 doesn't stand up to being blasted with gravel at 80 MPH. Every forward facing surface down there is back to bare metal! Luckily it isn't a problem because things don't really rust here in socal, but I'll definitely have to touch it up before driving through another salt mine! I'm thinking I'll try the brush-on Raptor Liner on these surfaces.


They were immaculate... until the first trip back to the desert!


Just surface rust... but obviously I chose the wrong paint for the gravel-blasted areas. Or maybe it's just hopeless in the first place.

It was a ton of work but I'm glad to be free of the scary rust from the salt mine!

 

ahem...waiting to learn something new here....

 

Can't tell if you're asking for an update or just trolling. I'm going to assume the former.

I haven't yet come up with a good way to deal with the fact that driving fast in the deserts sandblast the paint from forward facing areas. But the surface rust is no problem here in socal, so I have made no effort to repaint these areas. If I lived somewhere where they salt the roads I would be trying a lot harder, or at least spraying cosmoline or something. Yuck.

Did some suspension work the other day and boroscoped inside the front of the frame where rust usually kills these trucks. Still looks immaculately painted in there, as well as everywhere else not exposed to debris from the tires.

Not particularly impressed with POR15 for this type of repair though; the adhesion has been abysmal, and I did a ton of surface prep and followed the instructions very carefully. But still glad to have done this... My 2005 frame is probably in better shape today than the majority of 2020 Tacomas north of the Mason Dixon line, and I did a lot of other useful repairs and upgrades as part of project.

 

why are the ponds blue there?

 

It's died blue to accelerate solar evaporation as part of a potash mining process. Very neat place to visit!

Here's an article:

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/83905/potash-mine-near-moab-utah

 

Utah indeed has salt everywhere, last month I was driving to moab and on the freeway I got blasted with salt, just being on a windy freeway. When I pulled over to get gas my truck was heavily coated in salt and this was zero off road driving all straight freeway.

I use woolwax on my frame and undercarriage

 

Good timing for your reply, I am back in Utah watching the sun rise on the first day of my trip this year!



Truck hasn't rusted away quite yet

 

OP, if I were in your shoes I’d be upset too. Good on you having the skill and ability to repaint those components yourself. We all work hard to keep rust off the underbellies of these trucks.

 

Have a great trip! I'm going back in two weeks

 

good advice

 

maybe you can buy some sacrificial anodes from a boating supply store for your next stream crossing

 

Dang. I'll look out for that