this thread got me curious. i've had a little squeak in the back of my truck for a while now. i already took it apart and figured out it was my parking brake shoe, but i wanted to check out these backing plates.
not to make anyone jealous, but here's what my stock 200k mile backing plates look like
southern vehicles FTW
Yeah, that's about the only thing I don't like about living in a snow/salt area. I grew up in AZ, spent almost half my life after that in CA before moving to the D.C. area about 8 years ago.
After rebuilding some suspensions on a few cars over the last few years I'm finding out I don't enjoy it as much as I used to. Cutting off rusted and rounded bolts, shock towers, end links, cleaning and re-painting suspension and frame parts, etc. Now the jobs take me usually twice as long as they used to, amazing how one rusted/broken part can double the time of a job.
Eventually as I get older I'll start transitioning to letting shops deal with these annoyances. In the end it's a small compromise to live in a place with a lot of beauty.
I know a couple of guys who did classic auto restoration, they are east coast natives. One thing I couldn't understand is how they start with basket case cars. One guy I mentioned to that he should look for AZ, TX, and CA cars to start with. There's a whole lot less to rebuild, and many times only surface rust to deal with on the old 60s and 70s cars from out west. Here you get rotted floor pans, trunk pans, holes in body panels, etc.
---------- Post added at 10:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:37 PM ----------
And this is what the rotted old one looks like in comparison to the new one..
Looking at this thread again got me thinking.
When I had to adjust the e-brakes I wire brushed and sprayed the crap out of the backings with rustoleum, several coats. Over time though I'm sure that coating will get chipped up and start to rust again.
Has anyone ever tried anything a bit more substantial on their underbody parts? I was tossing around the idea of using spray/paint on truck bed liner to cover parts that don't get too much heat, figuring that it would be better protection than a thin coat of paint.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I spent most of my time out west where we didn't see snow and salt on the roads and we didn't have this kind of problem to deal with. And now every time I get under the truck to work on something I take the wire brush, some carb cleaner, and a can of rustoleum with me. I've wire brushed the driveshafts (rained down rust on me), cleaned them and painted them with rustoleum. Cleaned and painted over the places on the frame where the coating is missing, and even cleaned and sprayed the underbody in places that started to look like they were affected by the environment here. I also wire brush any nuts and bolts I can see and hit them with a coating of rustoleum as well for future wrenching. I figure that should keep the rust down and make removal easier.
I bought a can of paint on truck bed liner for when I'm rebuilding the suspension and steering in the spring. I'm hoping that will protect the underside a little better. As I take the parts off I'll be cleaning and coating everything I can get to.
