We have a 1931 Ford pickup that has 43,000 miles and been in storage most, if not all, of it's life. I've cleaned and polished the outside to the level we plan to keep but the underside of the fenders and bumper brackets, etc. still have surface rust and stand out. My question is: Should we leave it as is or put a coat of satin black on these areas to clean it up? There never seems to be a good place to stop! We have it running and driving good and plan to just drive and enjoy it. I've attached a "before" and several "after" pictures.
love the truck! if it were mine, and I was going to drive it, I would clean and coat the inside of the fenders. but your right you have to stop at some point
Great truck ... IMO you should remove / stop the rust and re-paint the fenders. It deserves the care.
Ford's are complicated. If you want to keep the value of the truck, stop the rust and leave the patina on the fenders. Ford's have and always will sell much higher unrestored. The moment you repaint the patina you damage the value of the Ford. Out of all car collectors in the world, Ford collectors are the purest of the purest. Let me put it like this; out of all of the 31 Pickups made, how many are still original? Stop the rust from spreading and leave the patina alone.
I gotta gree with him on this... great truck.rust doesn't stop. it will get only worse.when I see a truck like this and its got rust in/on or under it, seems to me they just don't care enough about their ride to take care of it.get that stuff off of it and make it look good!!
Drive the wheels off it for now, however in the meantime start collecting a flathead V8/tranny, a dropped front axle, some juice brakes and a set of 35 wire wheels for starters. Oh, take a couple of leaves out of those springs for now. Have fun...
IMO just paint the underside as you really need to isolate the rust - light as it is. On the topside - I think you're done. Keep wax on it.
The old farmers around here would just spray some kerosene on the rust and keep on driving the thing.
^^^^^^ I would probably do this on the under side of the fenders and the chassis. We use drain oil and kerosene and a pump sprayer. Get is clean forst ( IE remove all the old grease and caked on dirt) then spray away. You will need to do this about once a year, but it keeps it looking more truckish and not as showy.
There's an interesting idea. How much dirt and dust does it collect? I agree that this would stand out less and should provide as much protection as needed. I'll have to consider this one too, thanks
It will collect some dust but the kerosene makes it wand wash really nice, so a hand full of quarters once every couple of weeks and you are golden.
Remove the fenders, chop the top, swap out the drivetrain, lower the suspension and beef up the brakes.....oops, I was dreaming about what I would do to it. I'd clean off the rust and give it a light undercoating, repaint the brackets to 'match the patina'.
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