Stovebolt.com Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Preparing your truck for winter

Right waveski, I've spent hours and hours cleaning every nook and cranny of daily drivers, which can't be done all the time, if it's 0 degrees. Best thing is to drive something else when it's bad, or not drive at all, but not always on option.

Well...

when I was a kid my grandpa run a car repair shop. One of the services he offered, was undercoating for the winter.
The stuff he sprayed was a mix of used motor oil, penetration oil, that sticky oil you use for chain saws, petroleum jelly and woolwax.
He came up with this formula himself, after a lot of testing.
After he was done, he drove the car over a dry dirt road "to bake it in" as he called it. It worked very well, but it was a mess.

Good memories though - he taught me al lot about cars and engines and I loved to be at his shop.

Frank

I used to baby my 1980 pickup. I would be out on cold Winter days spraying fresh water around the inside of the wheel wells trying to flush out all the salt and grime. Even with that, the crud got trapped between the frame and the rear brake line. One day, corrosion caused the line to fail - no rear brakes. As High_Plains suggests, drive something else when they are putting that stuff on the road.

I'm originally from Cleveland, Ohio but the family wised up and moved to the Deeeeeeeeeep South (as Foghorn leghorn would say).

I know it's a mess up there and cars rot to nothing due to the salt but If you have a car you don't want to turn into a rust bucket you either can't drive it or you have to wash it.

I think it's still a better alternative to cosmoline.

If it is a everyday driver then coat it good,I don’t drive the 54 in the winter and what I drive is rusting out ,I have tried all kinds of home brews but use fluid film ,the cosmoline sounds interesting but I have found the rubberized or hard coatings hold in the moisture and make it worse ,some stuff is not great for rubber but if it is oily it will creep and that is what you want .I don’t know about old motor oil as does it not have detergent in it ,you don’t want clean metal or it will rust quick .Maybe a mix but having a coating is good to have but for storing a good cleaning and a light film of your favourite stuff that can be cleaned off without to much effort is good in my area.

I like Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs) not for the health and safety warnings but for what's in something. Cosmoline's ingredients are pretty unimpressive. Lime (calcium hydroxide), a cheap 6-carbon diol (double alcohol) and petroleum distillate.

There are the same corrosion concerns in another of my hobbies...a vintage Mercury outboard on a vintage boat. When old motors are used in salt water, people swear by Salt Away but it's just a detergent. For me, flushing and rinsing with fresh water can't be beat.

And I can't believe the price of these things.

High Plains Here in corn belt wilderness mostly all we get is brine on the bridges,with care we can avoid most salt applications. Had to change my 04 GMC fuel pump,I noticed most of the examples on the net were ate-up junk !