Drip Rail Rust...How Bad is This?

[SavageC20]

I am going to replace my drivers side rocker panel soon and I am also wanting to take care of the rust on the drip rail. I feel like the drip rail repair is beyond my abilities. Have any of you had damage similar to this repaired at a body shop? How much was it? How bad does mine look?

[bill3rail]

You will find out if it is real bad if you start wire wheeling it down!

Rust usually has depth that is unseen on the surface.

[AussieinNC]

Grab yourself a flap wheel and start removing the paint and sealer in the roof side of the channel first...

That actually doesn't look too bad...

Make sure you have a spray can of primer to spray back on the bare metal...

I have seen and repaired much worse....

Grind it back....go easy...and post some pics of the cleaned up area....

[SavageC20]

Originally Posted by AussieinNC

Grab yourself a flap wheel and start removing the paint and sealer in the roof side of the channel first...

That actually doesn't look too bad...

Make sure you have a spray can of primer to spray back on the bare metal...

I have seen and repaired much worse....

Grind it back....go easy...and post some pics of the cleaned up area....

Can I use a wire wheel on an angle grinder or is that too aggressive?

[AussieinNC]

That will work...just go easy...

Make sure you use protective glasses ! Wire wheel shards in your eyes ARE NOT FUN...

That old sealer will take a lot to get out...if you have a heat gun you can sometimes soften the sealer and scrape it out...

[SavageC20]

Originally Posted by AussieinNC

That will work...just go easy...

Make sure you use protective glasses ! Wire wheel shards in your eyes ARE NOT FUN...

That old sealer will take a lot to get out...if you have a heat gun you can sometimes soften the sealer and scrape it out...

Sounds good, and yeah I know someone who got one of those wires embedded in their eye...not fun. Ill also use my heat gun on it.

[Grumpy old man]

Angle grinders like to shoot wire right out of the wheel .So use a good face shield . It will work for what your doing , Sand blasting a small area would work better . That drip rail looks weak . A chainsaw would be too aggressive .

[57taskforce]

I agree that one doesn’t look too terribly bad but you never know what you’ve got until you clean it up. My father in law had a 72 K20 that had sky lights above the windshield and the drivers door from the drip rail rotting away. Rusted clean thru both the outer and inner panels.

[Molino]

I used stripping/grinding wheels that I bought off of epay. They work great, no loose wires. After all the old seam sealer is removed you can sandblast and determine how bad the cancer is and comprise a game plan. In the meantime brush or spray a good coat of 2k primer to protect the bare metal. As far as the stripping wheels, do a search in epay for “stripping wheel”. You can get the wheels that will screw onto the shaft of an angle grinder, I just got the cheaper version.
I feel your pain.
Russ

[Daves70]

Even if you find that it is rotted out. They really aren't that bad to do. Drill out the spot welds and spot weld a new one on. The replacements aren't an exact match but they are not too different either. I've had to replace a few of them and in my experience the actual drip rail takes the brunt of the rust and the other metal seems to clean up okay.

[PAWS 72]

Walmart has the paint striping wheels also. I used a Dremel on mine and a thin cut off wheel when I cleaned mine to repaint.

[Grumpy old man]

A combination of wire wheel/ scotch pads works in the creases and the larger 3M stripping wheels .

https://www.amazon.com/3M-Paint-Rust...91404932&psc=1

[SavageC20]

Finally got around to messing with this. What do you guys think?

[SavageC20]

one more

[Daves70]

Most will say that you need a new roof. I still think I would patch that. Know that the rust has likely made that area pretty thin,so it's worse than it looks. The good news is that the area at the drip rail will be hidden my the seam sealer. Clean cabs are getting hard to find( at least for me) so I've pretty much accepted that we will be fixing rougher cabs going forward.

[Daves70]

What is the inside like? If I were in California like you. I wouldn't even think about it. Its probably not hard for you to find a better cab. It costs us $1000 just to ship one here.

[Jason Banks]

Is that the worst part? I would totally patch that!

[SavageC20]

Originally Posted by Jason Banks

Is that the worst part? I would totally patch that!

This is definitely the worst part. The rest of the drip rail going around the cab definitely has some heavy surface rust but there are no holes. I don't want to get another cab because I had the drivers side rocker repaired and the passenger side is completely solid top to bottom.

[SavageC20]

Originally Posted by Daves70

What is the inside like? If I were in California like you. I wouldn't even think about it. Its probably not hard for you to find a better cab. It costs us $1000 just to ship one here.

The inside of the cab is solid. The worst area was the drivers side rocker but I had that redone. The passenger side rocker and roof are solid.