Frame Painting Steps

[lowbush]

I would not powder coat as it limits your future modifications like shock mounts, spring perches, cross bars, power steering frame reinforcement etc...

You can touch up powdercoat with a heat gun, just powder coat your part, and then grind the frame and the edge of your part. Weld it up then coat it and put the heat gun to it until it flows and then a little longer. If you get good at it you can weld it and put the powder on before it cools and the powder will flow without even using a heat gun. Also if you don't want to invest in the gun to touch up powder coating, powder is just epoxy or polyester, depending on which you use, you can use either in liquid form to touch it up. Now given that liquid epoxy or polyester is not heat cure it's not as strong as heat cured powder but it's as strong as the paint one would use to paint a frame.

 

[DuneBuster]

Do it Right the First time and there won't need to be a second time..

I POR-15'd my frame in 2005. still not a spec of rust anywhere. Here's what I did:

1: Clean up and cut away old stuff attached that shouldn't be there to begin with, like travel bumpers or brackets..
2: Professional 10,000 PSI Allis-Chalmers sand blast all around including inside the frame boxes lots of rat lint there!! Frame went from Rust brown to bare metal light grey in seconds.. Met at guy with a trailered rig in a parking lot with the frame in the bed of my f-150. We laid it on the ground and he did it in 15 min for $50..
3: Got the whole POR-15 kit - degreaser, marine clean, 2 gal POR-15
4: Grind down any rough spots on the frame to smooth it out.. weld any fixes you need to do.
5: degrease then marine cleaner on the frame
6: Get lots of brushes and brake cleaner for cleanup.
7: Completely paint exterior of the frame with POR-15. had to do that in 2 steps, paint top, dry, flip, paint bottom, dry.
7: Thread a rope thru each frame box and tie a sponge to the center and soak with POR-15 and part way thru pour some POR thru a hole near the sponge to help cover the middle. Paint from each end to the middle. I did that 4 times for each frame box.
Now the entire box was painted except hte 2 cross members. I found a hole in each and poured in some POR-15 and sloshed it around by lifting he frame vertical outside and then flipped it end over end a few times to cover that inside.

Like I said I don't have any rust anywhere on the frame after 9 years. It has a 2" body lift and a 3" suspension lift and there is very little loss of gloss due to sunlight exposure so far.

I wouldn't do anything different today...