I love all the snow we have been getting up here, but I only get about an hour of fun after a snowfall. After that it is nothing more than salt EVERYWHERE. My truck looks like a giant salt lick.

So now I have blisters appearing on the cab corners and doors. The blisters are all paint peeling up (all smaller than a dime) with the typical orange rust seeping out. My concern is; Can I get away with sanding the problem areas down, using a rust inhibitor on the bare metal, prime the area with good primer, and having a shop repaint the bottom half of the truck (from the trim strip, down to the bottom)? Or should I replace the metal. The reason I ask this is:

1. The problem areas are scattered all over. The door bottoms, rockers, cab corners, bed bottom and tailgate bottom.
2. The paint peels off and the metal on the tailgate and bed but the metal underneith is still smooth. The tailgate has very slight orange runoff, but the bed does not (I'm assuming the bed is galvinized).
3. The cab corners and doors has smooth unblistered metal underneith too with just some orange haze off the cab corners and not so much the doors.
4. The paint peeling seems to be more of a problem than the rust at the moment.
5. I don't want to replace all that metal (just yet anyway) but I don't want to paint all those areas just to have it break thru again.

Whats my best option here?

 

Salt sucks, I always wash my truck super good no more than a day or two after a nasty salt. Around here we don't have snow storms, we have salt storms.

 

Lol, I hear that. I've been trying to wash it off but, well lets put it this way, just the water spray from the road freezes on the body panels. Need one day over freezing to wash it off. Now that you mention it my truck is close to the color of yours right now and its blue! lol.

 

I would be concerned with just painting the areas that have "orange runoff". There is the possibility that the salt is in the door and tailgate eating it from the inside. I don't know how to fix that without serious work. The upside - deer love a mineral block. Dress in white, sit in the bed and wait.

 

Now I see why you're looking at doing all that Rhino lining man.

 

The cab corners I'm not 100% sure of, but it seems like most of this is from the outside in. Just because it starts with a bubble, then the paint peels off and for a few days the metal underneith is fine. Its smooth and blister/orange free. Then on the (cab corners and tailgate anyway) I get this real light orange haze on the metal. Im so pissed. Ever truck I looked at had it too when I bought mine. This one had one little spot, now it has 6-7 of them. Im hoping the majority of this is bad paint as my 91' got repainted twice (once when my dad had it and once on the bottom when I had it). But I know that the cab corners will need replaced eventually anyway.

 

I would like to get Argons opinion on this as he has seen tons of these trucks before.

I think my problem is part paint chipping and part rust. Should I sand down the problem area and do rust inhibitor (if the metal underneith isn't blistered to hell), and then repaint? Or just replace the old metal? Nothing is severe, Im sure there is rust in areas I can't see, but for the most part it looks like hell just because of the paint bubbling and chipping off. I'll get pics when I clean it up again.

 

if the rust is just caused by the paint chipping just sand the rust off and repaint. check to see if the rust is comming from the outside or inside of the panels. if outside repaint, if inside then itll need some body work.

 

Why don't you just do a rhino lining job in the common problem areas? I would do it just to protect the truck.

 

Thats what I was thinking, but it has to be treated anyway to prevent the rust from spreading under the Rhino liner. I heard this can be done with a "rust inhibitor" or a "rust inhibitor primer". As long as there are no problems on the other side of the metal, this will work (so I hear). Otherwise I need new metal. Either way I want the Rhino liner on the bottom 5 inches of the truck body all around the entire truck, inside and out. I'm hoping they can either match the paint or use silver to accent the trim and decals I have on the truck.


There was this 94 Silverado step side at the place where I bought my 99'. I had the Rhino Liner on the bottom like I was talking about, and it looked pretty nice. Man was it a beauty tho, 38" tires, 6" lift, 2" body, huge drop bumpers, Mickey Thompson wheels and tires, just perfect. Only thing I would have changed it the fact it had the original 5.0 in it with nothing more than duals on it.