Current State of Rust: 10 years above the salt belt

[thebarber]

You’ve got to oil spray your car. It was a big thing in southern Ontario. I have almost 400,000 km on the #wrecho and I don’t have any rust like that!

[06YarisRS]

Originally Posted by thebarber

You’ve got to oil spray your car.

FACT!

Especially after you do the repairs. I have seen too many expensive body jobs go to s**t in a year because the areas were not treated afterwards. You CANNOT over rustproof a car, only under rustproof them. Somebody came up with the idea of using sections of plastic eavestroughing - cut to the length of the rocker panels to catch drips. I adopted this method and literally pour ATF or oil into the rockers/dogleg area etc and let it run out and collect it in a shallow bucket of some sort. Reserve the oil that comes out for your next rustproofing endeavour. You just raise the closed end of the eavestrough and the open end channels the oil into your bucket. Remove your plastic sill plates and holes into the rocker will magically appear. Park the car on a slight incline, using a small funnel, dump in ATF/Oil and let it run down hill and out from the rocker seams into bucket. Do both sides of the car. Then turn the car around on the incline and repeat. This will saturate all rust prone areas from the very front to the very back of the rocker. Proof is provided by ATF/oil dripping all along the length of the rockers. Inside the rockers, oil wicks upward over time, coating covering the insides of the rockers. The process is clean, spills no oil - if you're careful. Repeat a couple times during the year. I'm not joking when I say that I can perform this operation in less than 1/2 hour and the majority of that time is spent waiting until the bulk of the oil drips out. I tend to go overboard. Once a year would probably be just fine.

This is a topic that I am passionate about (and therefore tend to go a little overboard when discussing in forums) for a few reasons:

1) cars are junked way before their useful life has ended - due to rust.

2) Rust is cosmetically unsightly and structurally destructive, but almost entirely preventable. It is so simple and so inexpensive to do.

3) I'm no tree hugger, but it's environmentally friendly if done carefully. Sure, there will be a few drips that hit the asphalt, but in comparison to scraping a car before its time or the impact of re-refining recycled oil, it's a no-brainer in my estimation.

4) Provides an opportunity to explore/understand the inner construction of you car.

5) Provides that warm feeling that your car is protected against the assault of corrosive materials as you drive.