I've been driving a '58 every day in any weather for 15 years [coastal BC, think lots of wet roads, snow and road salt] - it had no paint on the trans, driveshaft, frame, springs, rear end or brake drums from the factory or when I got it, and it still doesn't .... there is no "thick rust" on any of that, there's
surface rust on most of the undercarriage, and I'd expect it to be about the same after another 50 years - where real
corrosion happens is where water gets trapped,
under the paint or between riveted members or in pinch welds .... gonna take all the frame cross members off and paint the pieces before re-assembly? how about the rivets?
if you want to have a show truck, paint it up - but keep it clean and dry or be ready to repaint everything regularly
not too many folks be crawling under your truck to check the paint
you should be able to find an old Flx down there,
lots built, every bus company on the continent had'em [probably your local] .... with unpainted undercarriages no less
the only place corrosion on the Clippers was a problem was the spring mounts, which are open top 'boxes' with no drainage, I dug about 2" of stuff out of them, fortunately it was such fine silty stuff it was packed enough to keep oxygen out, wasn't hard to cleanup, then I used some
good rustproofer in those - go another 60 years easy
Bill
