I have a little Ford Escort for my winter driver. Two years and it already has holes in the floor. The bigger problem where I am is traction. The front wheel drive seems to be the answer, I drive my PU sometimes in the winter and steering can be a problem on ice as well as traction to get it moving. I would never try to operate the coupe in the winter here, besides in the spring time its almost like getting a new car.
Bees wax or used deep fry oil. Bolth get real gummy and sticky when cold,then kinda melts off in the summer heat. Just another possible alternitive to waste oil.
No the flat green one that was lowered and striped. Got a 66 poncho now in almost perfect shape. Guess it will sit till summer.
Likewise, I moved out of No. Illinois because I got tired of seeing my fenders dissolve. It used to be a Spring ritual to re-bondo the eyebrows on our '58 BelAir. "Road Oil" treatment for the undercarriage was standard up there in the '50's - '60's, and was great for leaf springs, kept them working smoothly. In the late '60's Rusty Jones and Ziebart came along, and you'd see cars with the door bottoms gone because they'd plug up the drain holes with that tar. Unfortunately, the New Mexico solution to minimizing salt use is to spread ground-up lava from the volcanoes to the west. It won't corrode like salt but it is like driving your car on blasting media. It cuts glass, chips paint, and they don't grind it up very well so some chunks are pretty big. At least it only snows 4 or 5 times a year, and the sun comes out within hours.
Salt water from the roads doesn't start working on the metal until the temp is 38deg or higher. If you think about that for a min, the floors get warm from your heater and exhaust...rusted areas. Anywhere the car/truck can see over 38deg and salt water's present it can begin. Once it starts it really never stops. I used to have a Camaro pace car conv. I had to drive into the job site one day at the steel mill (we were building new blast furnace bases). The mud and slop from there was too ugly just to look at and I was on an afternoon shift. I stopped at a coin-op wash and cleaned it up real nice. There were drain holes in the rockers and quarter panels. I parked it in the drive that night and never cared about the incedent. 2 days later the concrete driveway had 4 "gravel pits" the size of a football, FROM THE DRIPPINGS AFTER THE CAR WASH!! needless to say in a month that car looked 40years old, and although repaired those scars are still in Dad's driveway. BTW this was in May of 76.
If you have ever worked on an older rusty car, you will always notice that the only unrusted places had oil-and-dirt undercoating on perfectly preserved metal. A commonly recommended practice which was almost universal in the old days was just as others have said- spray some used motor oil, and let the dust collect on it. I can see why new motor oil would have less acid contamination and fresher anti corrosion additives. If the green people are worried nuts about "pollution" just remember that even if you dump your whole crankcase on the road (can't possibly happen from your "flooboard drip"), you won't even be adding a tiny millionth of a micro-fraction of what is washed down the drains and rivers every day from the short stretch of asphalt in front of your house even if no cars ever used the street. The asphalt roads, parking lots etc etc put out HUGE amounts of oil and other petrolium discharges just from their own ingredients in the asphalt mix. EVERY time the Street Department fixes two or three potholes, there will be more oily runoff from the patch than your little car can drip in a year or possibly several years. Lets stop fretting and wringing our hands worrying whether the moon will spin out of orbit if we trim our eyelashes unevenly. Just remember that the Gulf Of Mexico, among other "natural" places, is constantly bubbling with oil coming to the surface naturally, as is the ground underneath several cities, all from "Mother Earth". If all of us spent our entire life savings trying to duplicate that we couldn't even be noticed. If the "green" argument is important to you, then remember this-- For the building of EACH new car, there are thousands of pounds of smog particles, smoke, dangerous scrap chemicals, non-recoverable waste, and HUGE energy consumption even before the car puffs it's first breath. The EPA itself gave out the figures. I forget the exact number but it is more than a several times what the finished car weighs. Your old car, or my old carS, even if we get really dirty, will NEVER pollute in the next 30 YEARS of constant driving what ONE NEW CAR has ALREADY pulluted by just being "birthed". THE POINT- re-using and rebuilding your old items is so very very very much cleaner, whatever you have to do. It is many THOUSANDS of times cleaner to preserve and use what ALREADY EXISTS, than it is to let it rust and have to be replaced with something else. If you think your tiny little "drip" is dirty, just ask yourself about how clean it is to burn train car loads of coal to power the furnace to melt and stamp your new fenders, melt down and cast a new engine block, or to power the gang drills, mills, and stamping machines to make the "CLEAN" replacement you will then have to use. YOUR dirty old car is much much cleaner than ANY new car because it is ALREADY HERE.
Sorry if I'm long winded, but I think this part is worth repeating- It is many THOUSANDS of times cleaner to preserve and use what ALREADY EXISTS, than it is to let it rust and have to be replaced with something else. If you think your tiny little "drip" is dirty, just ask yourself about how clean it is to burn train car loads of coal to power the furnace to melt and stamp your new fenders, melt down and cast a new engine block, or to power the gang drills, mills, and stamping machines to make the "CLEAN" replacement you will then have to use. YOUR dirty old car is much much cleaner than ANY new car because it is ALREADY HERE.
Magnesium Chloride. EEEEVIL shit, this is...BUT, it's "better for the environment", allegedly. Lees harmful to Bambi, but much more corrosive than salt. So, our vehicles and bridges, along with other infrastructure, suffer even more. Makes perfectly good sense to me. /
ive seen the c130 & c47 gun ships up close & personal . good to know that they are there !!!!!!!!!!!! .. steve http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/image.php?u=47664&dateline=1223922078
the LPS 3 does the same thing as the bar oil,it's a wax base that is super sticky, and it has an oil base. it's made to protect metal from corrosion.
eats metal like a fat chick at a buffet ! Still trying to get that picture out of my mind!!!....and the '75 Gremlin dripping old, used oil all over!! My daily driver is covered with white crap from the stuff they put all over the streets early every morning to prevent it from being slick. It has really been too cold to wash it between the little snow we have been getting. I am really hating the winter this year. Mike
Park it in OCT and keep it there till March. Now with that said i think i live in the winter time salt capital of the world. At least thats what the spring time pot holes tell me! Drove my truck for 5 years year round. When i built it i knew it was goin to be my daily.Redid it last spring. Had some rust issues but no big deal.But i knew where the rust issues were from the first time i fixed it so i did my best to protect it.I dont have to drive it year round any more but wouldnt hesitate to do it again.When i was a kid my dad would thin STP with laquer thinner and spray the bottom of his cars every fall.It worked ok for him
Salt? Rust? I'm waiting for Dammit or HAMBAndys crew to chime in. Guys.. get a map of the US AND Canada.. look East.. WAY east and find out where Nova Scotia is or Newfoundland is. Why do you think we struggle with being able to find decent stuff to work with??? You just worry about salt on the roads in winter? Ask Dammit or anyone of us on the way-east coast. We'll tell you rust is a fact of life. If we want to preserve a car it must be in a climate controlled room and never used. We have salt in the AIR... 365/24/7. And oil isn't "allowed" any more. Hasn't been for years. I know a fellow who uses old cooking oil that he allows to settle for a while. Only problem is he says that every time you drive a car he does that to.. you get hungry and have to go to a restaurant for some fries! And we hear people talk about "patina". That's such a major joke here. One season unprotected and no more "patina". No more metal at all. Fix it. Drive it. Clean it. Fix it. Drive it. Rinse and repeat! There are MANY commercial undercoatings available here. Watch out for the type that stiffen when thick. They crack and collect the water and salt defeating the prupose competely.
I'm gonna get shot to pieces here; but does powder coating stand up to North Eastern weather? I know 'ya can't afford it... I was thinkin' fiberglass body powder-coated farme... I know....but...
Since this has sort of become a discussion about "oiling"vehicles,Iwould also add that the beauty of using oil is that it seeps in between spot welds,body seams,door skin crimps,etc.any place wet salt collects and rusts parts.It is not just bodys that rust around here,frames,gas tanks,control arms,spring hangers even oil pans!!. I dont plan on driving my 98 ranger for the rest of my life,but I would rather work on something interesting[HAMB friendly] than patching up a rusted out daily driver every spring.
Before I got a lift, I used to put on an old rain coat, and drive the car up on some ramps and use the creeper, then turn the car around and do the other side. With the pressure pot, not sure how I would spray the bar oil, plus I would have to buy that! New oil was too thick. If I sprayed too late in the fall (cold) I would have to thin it a little with kerosene. I also drilled holes in the 1/4s and doors to get inside too. Were probably talking about 2 qts per car. I never had a reason to drive down a dirt road to build up, as after about 5 years of doing this, the build up is pretty thick. And after 10 you have to pressure wash it off or it starts to rust under the build up..... As far as the drain oil being a tragedy to the environment, dude, really, what do you think the salt is doing?
"As far as the drain oil being a tragedy to the environment, dude, really, what do you think the salt is doing?" Oh boy. I'm no tree-hugger, but I think adding to the environmental problem is frowned upon. That's kind of like saying that since there is an offshore oil spill it won't matter if I pollute the waters more. This was the oil-spray capital of the world. Every garage, backyard mechanic or person who took care of their own car had an oil-pit pit or ramp. I've done my share and more of oil-spraying in the 70s and 80s as a sideline. Make darned sure you use some sort of GOOD breathing apparatus. Oil in a spray-able form is very hard on the lungs, eyes and skin. I know. First hand. Seriously, if some of you are thinking of doing this as a side business get a fresh air pack and wear protective clothes. In fact you would be advised from a toxic point of view to not do it at all. Used oil has been proven to be carcinogenic (I know.. most everything is nowadays). But I guess some people still think spraying urethane paint without fresh air isn't bad... Heating the oil instead of thinning it was preferred. People even added greases to the heated oil to make it thicker once applied and cooled, which made it run off slower. Immersion heaters work well. No open flame. Being boiled in oil can't be fun. You can buy cheap undercoating guns that have large venturis to pass thick fluids. Oh and some commercial products actually rot rubber and some plastics. Oil isn't the best on some materials either and in spray-form it will go everywhere. Close the fresh-air vents on the car!!! Once in the cab it really makes a mess of the upholstery. And brake components don't do that well either. Once a shoe or pad is soaked.. replace it.
This car (a 1993 Chrysler Concorde) only has 19,000 miles on it. The trailing arm on the rear suspension has two inches missing out of the middle. The only thing holding it together is the ABS brake line. The big picture is here: http://www.laroke.com/larryk4674/2006/bl080506a.jpg My Mom didn't know she was running an experiment when she ran it half a mile each week, each way, to the supermarket and back on salted western Pennslyvania roads. After I fixed the trailing arm, it wasn't long before a brake line blew out. That was a good thing because I found the gas line leaking next to the muffler while I was looking for the brake line leak. I'm currently in the process of restoring the whole undercarriage.
I drive my old cars (I don't have anything but old cars) in the salt and have never had any rust issues other then existing issues (stuff that was there from previous owner's neglect that I didn't get a change to fix yet). I just wash my cars once a week with a pressure washer. make sure you get the door bottoms, inside the fender wells, and the undercariage and you will be fine. Leaving a car covered in salt for a long time will cause it rust out quick so wash regularly.
This is what I have my cars far...to be able to drive them....I had a 48 ford pickup for 19 years and drove it almost every day...It wouldn't go well in the snow but after the roads were clear out the driveway we would go. I will be driving my 33 some this winter when the roads are clear....I have a 50 ford pickup maybe I should make it 4 wheel drive then I could play in the snow....Life is to short to worry about a little salt....I don't want to Park my car in the garage all winter and hope I live till spring........
Oh yeah, they use that stuff here in western South Carolina and North Carolina (and N. GA). They "pre-treat" even if the weatherman says "possibility" of snow or ice storm and with the drought here usually nothing materializes. So then we have white roads until a good rain comes along. I just leave my old iron in the garage until a couple of rains have cleared the roads. That's my recommendation to anyone in the salt zones, I just don't trust rust, once it sarts ,it does spread like cancer. The new dd's I don't worry about (like a 2000 Toyota: shoot, rust might give it some individuality!).
What about running a car through a car wash.........do they use all fresh water, or do they filter out the dirt and reuse the water that is loaded with salt?..........I find it hard to believe that they don't recycle the "salt" water. Anyone own or run a car wash in the rust belt, that can share some info about car wash water. Washing a car with salty water doesn't seem like a smart thing to do, but it seems like something that would be done in this day and age to save a few bucks for the car wash.
I think car washes use an RO (reverse osmosis) system to clean up their water. It would remove salt, I believe.
I find it strange that they can still get away with treating the roads with salt . it kills the trees, kills the fish, wrecks the roads and bridges, wrecks everything! even the trucks that spread it! I would think that the environmentlists would hate this stuff as much as us. its like no one is paying attention.
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