[Land-speed] Preventing Salt Damage & Rust>From>JGMagoo

[Ed Weldon]

JG --
Do what Dick J and Benn suggest, but hold off on the frequent washes on the
way home.  The less time (in hours) that salt, water and high temperatures
have to work on unpainted steel in cracks and crevices the better off you
are.  Dick J lives in a year round warm humid climate.  He has to get rid of
the salt ASAP.  You live in dry Colorado (except maybe during the spring
thaw).  So plan on pulling the body off the frame of that deuce well before
the snow melts, give everything a good scrubbing to get any salt off and
then put on your favorite rust proofing coating. Also pull the drums and
check the leaf springs for salt deposits.  And if you can't find the time to
do that yourself, hire a shop to do it for you.  You don't have to do a
complete restoration.  Just get a good coating where it's needed, put in new
wiring harnesses with marine electrical sealant around all the connections
and put it back together with new fasteners & theads coated with neversieze.
You can wash that 32 till the cows come home and you won't get the salt out
of the seams in places like between the body and frame, individual sheet
metal assemblies and under the wood body framing.  And just to make sure you
know what to expect, the Bonneville is almost always wet, so salt sticks to
surfaces easily.  Even when the sun "dries" it and the humidity is 10% it is
sucking water out of the air.  And another thing...... the salt gets up into
the air with any wind and flies around as a fine dust that gets into
everything.  Modern vehicles have electrical systems that are fairly
resistant to that stuff (but not completely, not even my Toyota Tacoma)  And
most metal surfaces have some kind of coating.  Not so for vehicles made
before the late 1970's
Ed Weldon

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <jgmagoo at comcast.net>
To: "land-speed-digest" <land-speed at autox.team.net>
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 4:15 PM
Subject: [Land-speed] Preventing Salt Damage & Rust>From>JGMagoo


> Hi All,
> We're coming to Speedweek and driving a couple of antique vehicles. (One
is a 1932 Ford 3-W coupe that was a 'barn find' and still has the original
paint, etc.).
> What are you guys recommendations for preparing these vehicles for driving
on the salt before we arrive,  and also what are the recommendations for the
clean-up process to prevent damage from rust and salt corrosion after we get
home.
> All suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!
> JGMagoo
> Silverthorne, Colorado