Yet Another Rusty Frame Post

A younger, dumber version of myself thought that buying an ‘01 Tacoma from Minnesota was a good way to save a few dollars. Nevermind that I live in the PNW and could probably have found a mint 1st gen out here…

Anyways, the truck has been good to me for my 6+ years of ownership, but I’m finally done putting off addressing the frame. Having spent some time in the rust belt, there’s plenty of surface rust on the frame, but I’ve done the hammer test all over it and it pings wonderfully. There are no thin seeming spots so despite the alarming appearance, I’ve convinced myself that it’s still a sound frame.

If anyone is curious, I can list my plans to make the frame look pretty & extend its life, but the reason for the post is two questions:

1) I’m able to get fairly thick chunks of material peeling off the frame in certain spots (also some in the interior of the frame). It’s completely black in the middle and maybe one mm thick. Is it possible that this is the undercoating Toyota applied as part of the frame warranty? Would it be inside the frame as well? The material doesn’t appear “rusty”, it seems totally black, except where it was bonded to the surface rust.

2) Is it possible to do a reasonable job with the bed still on? I’ve got a fairly permanent camping setup in the bed, and it’s more work than I’d like to remove the cap, remove the drawer system, etc. I’d guess there’s at least 200 lbs of extra weight in the bed so it doesn’t seem feasible to remove it (without access to a lift).

 

Hard to tell from the pictures but it might be part of an undercoating coming off with chunks of metal attached. Others will chime in.

 

Welcome to the Forum!!

The first step is get as much of that coating off as possible !

As you can see moisture gets trapped between the coating and the steel

Just do the best you can with the bed on!

The best treatments seem to be products along the lines of Wool Wax / Fluid Film applied every fall.

The outside and inside of the frame!

Good Luck!

 

I have taken the exact same stuff off the inside of the frame. Appeared to be some kind of coating. I took a borescope and looked inside, hammer tested it and it's very sound. I use fluid film black every fall and inspect the frame everywhere to keep it as long as possible before I inevitably will have to take the bed (maybe cab) off and do some more in detail work. If it's still solid feeling just clean it well and treat it. All you can do if you don't want to remover all that camper stuff.

 

How did you clean the inside of the frame? I’ve seen some people attaching some kind of flexible wire & chains to a drill and sticking it in the interior to break up any flakes. What worked for you?

My plan was to still attempt to paint the exterior of the frame even with the cab and bed still on. Sure there’s some spots I’ll miss, but I’m tired of the trashy rusty frame look. I think I can do it in a way that doesn’t lead to corrosion under the paint surface too.

I was planning on using Mastercoat products like in this video. First prep the surface with a needler/wire wheel, then use phosphoric acid to convert any remaining surface rust, then a rust encapsulator, then an AG 111 topcoat. For the inside of the frame I was just going to clean it as best as I could then use Fluid Film or an equivalent.

 

I pulled similar chunks out of my old 98. I wouldn't bother trying to get all the flakes out of the frame rails. Just spray some rust encapsulator like Eastwood in there and inspect it regularly for holes. In the meantime, I'd keep an eye out for a clean frame locally. I opted to cut my losses with my rusty 98 and eventually replace it with a rust-free Texas truck.

 

I used a variety of things I found in the garage. Took a metal coat hanger and bent it relatively straight or whatever worked. Would poke it around in there and loosen stuff up. It was mostly filled with dirt/sand and rocks from years of off-roading and gravel I assume and snowy roads to boot. I also connected the hanger to the end of my drill and spun it around. Wasn't much to knock loose. After it was all knocked loose I took a clear 1/4" diameter flexible hose and duct taped it to the end of my shop vac and went to town. This turned out to be a highly efficient way to get all the crap out of there. Stuff that was too big would just stick tot he hose. The hose was actually good at breaking some of the dirt loose. I used my bore scope to look in there and surprisingly it was was the worse closer to those inspection/water escape holes on the frame. Cleaned it out best I could and coated it again with fluid film. The hose came out covered in previous years fluid film but all in all I feel good about it.