Hi guys, I just purchased a 1985 dodge ram 50. It has some rust bleeding through as shown in the pics. Just wondering is this a common problem with these trucks? also how to properly fix. The nice thing is the body is like brand new other than a little ding and one spot where the paint was touched up on the fender. Thanks in advance guy's for the responses.
Anybody??
"to properly fix" will require $....I would not bother & simply keep coating the areas in question with a light coat of oil, ie: bar&chain and "pledge" furniture polish the rest of the truck til it got worse.
ragtime is right. It is might expensive to fix because it requires a lot of time and that's what cost so much about hiring out auto body workers. I had slowed the rust down on my truck but then I moved to a more humid climate and there's no staying ahead of it now. That's why I bought a second truck to replace my current body with. My wasn't savable. Even this past week I noticed a new hole. Pretty sad to watch.
When you say it is going to be expensive what kind of money are we talking? I mean ballpark figure?
It's been a few years (like 10) since I was doing auto body but expect 60-80 bucks per hour. Your picture of rust is focused on the dirt behind the cab and not the cab so it's difficult to tell but I imagine they'd charge you 4-5 hours of labor plus supplies. That isn't exactly an easy place to just touch up either since it's so close to the top of the cab they'd have to paint the entire thing and then either blend it or spray to the nearest body line on the posts. It never hurts to get an estimate but I would say put aside $600-$800 dollars. That's if you hire it out. If you did it with a buddy it would be much cheaper, but then you have to consider on how you'd get a gun and having a place clean enough to get a nice clean paint job. Auto body is rewarding but sure requires a lot of stuff!
find and use a rust stopping treatment such as Ospho - it converts rust to Iron Phosphate that is inert to water for a long time. I treated a old hood from Geronimo 25 years ago and the treated spots have not rusted with the hood sitting in several non climate controlled places in that time. It is also easy to paint over when you are ready to fix it.
Last edited by pennyman1; 10-14-2015 at 07:06 PM.
Pennyman1
The best Dodge that Dodge never made
Living the D-50 lifestyle since 1980
I had never heard of that Ospho stuff. Did a little research... sounds pretty interesting. I have a few rusty nicks on the hood of my jetta and I might just buy some of this product to give it a test. My truck is too far gone to salvage with this stuff.
Even with proper treatment of rust converter you still need to strip the paint from affected area to see how bad it is (which you may not want open that can) from the pic it looks like it is at the factory seam is it just the paint peeling or is there a crack in metal.
I used penetrol on one car I owned - I was living by the beach and the salt air was munching the bottom out of my front doors. I treated them but not the rears and mother nature claimed the untreated doors pretty quickly. It didn't stop the rust completely but the conditions the car was being kept in were harsh. It held up a lot longer than I expected.
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