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TJ Addict
Report back if you use it. I'm devoted to fluid film but still like to know about other potential solutions if they work well
How to clean your Jeep Wrangler TJ frame
- Thread starter Wade
- Start date
Report back if you use it. I'm devoted to fluid film but still like to know about other potential solutions if they work well
Hey, guys! I'm just checking in. I examined my frame on January 3, 2023, and the Eastwood internal coating seems to be working perfectly. So this entire procedure of adding or enlarging a few carefully thought-out holes, blasting the inside of the rails clean, and then using the Eastwood product was worth all the thought and effort. I am very pleased with this, long-term.
My only suggested change/addition would be to see whether the interior of the frame rails can be dry ice blasted after being modified and blasted out with the clog hog. I recently saw this done and it leaves ZERO residues. It is not as effective as media blasting with something solid, but it is still very good. And it all disappears/melts to leave a very clean surface. I would blast it out with the clog hog a second time afterward to ensure any rust particulate is removed, but that is just me.
Also, a friend showed me how he HEATS the frame rails to dry them out. He does a lot of river fording and is anal-retentive about his TJ frame. He blasts it out with clean hose water and then leaves the TJ in the sun to dry out. However, in the winter he has noted that the water will still be in the rails for several days. He has some fancy-schmancy heater "strings" (I did not ask him what they are called, but they are some sort of aircraft tool, and probably expensive) that he runs in one end of the frame and out a side hole, one section at a time, and they are waterproof and get pretty hot. You fish them in the rear and over the wheel arch, out that large side hole, and then warm that section until the water has evaporated. He has six of these, so he can do the front, middle, and rear of both rails at one time. It takes about two hours on a cold day.
I asked him why he did not just coat the frame as I did. He said that here in the Deep South, we did not need to do that. Whatever. I did, so I did it. His heaters would be perfect to use after washing out the frame, but before the Eastwood gunk is sprayed inside. If you spray it into a frame rail with standing water droplets, they will be forever encased between the gunk and the steel. I think that eventually, these will rust all the way through, but with no oxygen, it would probably take a very long time to do so. Anyway, the idea of heating the frame rails to ensure they are DRY is a good one, though probably not necessary. I am just alerting you to the existence of this heater cord my friend has.
One last note: The Eastwood coating that I accidentally sprayed onto my carport slab years ago looks like it happened yesterday. That nasty green stuff is tough!
My only suggested change/addition would be to see whether the interior of the frame rails can be dry ice blasted after being modified and blasted out with the clog hog. I recently saw this done and it leaves ZERO residues. It is not as effective as media blasting with something solid, but it is still very good. And it all disappears/melts to leave a very clean surface. I would blast it out with the clog hog a second time afterward to ensure any rust particulate is removed, but that is just me.
Also, a friend showed me how he HEATS the frame rails to dry them out. He does a lot of river fording and is anal-retentive about his TJ frame. He blasts it out with clean hose water and then leaves the TJ in the sun to dry out. However, in the winter he has noted that the water will still be in the rails for several days. He has some fancy-schmancy heater "strings" (I did not ask him what they are called, but they are some sort of aircraft tool, and probably expensive) that he runs in one end of the frame and out a side hole, one section at a time, and they are waterproof and get pretty hot. You fish them in the rear and over the wheel arch, out that large side hole, and then warm that section until the water has evaporated. He has six of these, so he can do the front, middle, and rear of both rails at one time. It takes about two hours on a cold day.
I asked him why he did not just coat the frame as I did. He said that here in the Deep South, we did not need to do that. Whatever. I did, so I did it. His heaters would be perfect to use after washing out the frame, but before the Eastwood gunk is sprayed inside. If you spray it into a frame rail with standing water droplets, they will be forever encased between the gunk and the steel. I think that eventually, these will rust all the way through, but with no oxygen, it would probably take a very long time to do so. Anyway, the idea of heating the frame rails to ensure they are DRY is a good one, though probably not necessary. I am just alerting you to the existence of this heater cord my friend has.
One last note: The Eastwood coating that I accidentally sprayed onto my carport slab years ago looks like it happened yesterday. That nasty green stuff is tough!
Kenneth G Zinis
TJ Enthusiast
I just thought I would add another great option to an already fantastic write up.
When I cleaned my frame out earlier this year, I used an air compressor and an air duct cleaning whip. I own a company that does air duct cleaning, so this was a simple thing for me to source the supplies for. you can run the air lines all the way through the frame, and with a whip on the end, it breaks up the caked in crap really well. I was completely shocked at how much came out. More than one full dustpan per frame rail.
I then coated the inside with POR15+topcoat, but I've no doubt the Eastwood product is great as well. I just didn't know about it.
When I cleaned my frame out earlier this year, I used an air compressor and an air duct cleaning whip. I own a company that does air duct cleaning, so this was a simple thing for me to source the supplies for. you can run the air lines all the way through the frame, and with a whip on the end, it breaks up the caked in crap really well. I was completely shocked at how much came out. More than one full dustpan per frame rail.
I then coated the inside with POR15+topcoat, but I've no doubt the Eastwood product is great as well. I just didn't know about it.
Where would one get one of these whips? I'm assuming it would be similar to a needle scaler, just not as intense?
@NWPA Jeepy T
All three of our duct cleaning trucks are currently at our main office location, and that is a 2 hour drive away for me. So unfortunately, I can't take pictures of the products that I used. However, I talked to guy in house here that orders supplies and he gave me a couple of websites to look at.
This is the company where we get most of our supplies. Unfortunately, their website is absolute garbage and doesn't have even close to all of their products. You would probably be better off calling them and asking what you would need to get this done.
http://ductcleanerssupply.com/AboutUs.php
Here is another company that has similar products. This is a much larger company, and we use a lot of their products on the mold mitigation side of our company. Here is an example of what one of the whips looks like:
https://products.abatement.com/usa/duct-pro-three-whip-power-rod-head-clear-hose.html
We also use real thin air lines that can be fed all the way down the frame. The next time I stop by our main office, I'll try to get some pictures of the tools that I used.
Alternatively, any local air duct cleaning company might be willing to clean them out for you reasonably cheap. It took me about one hour per frame rail, but I went slow and rechecked it 50x to make sure I got it all.
All three of our duct cleaning trucks are currently at our main office location, and that is a 2 hour drive away for me. So unfortunately, I can't take pictures of the products that I used. However, I talked to guy in house here that orders supplies and he gave me a couple of websites to look at.
This is the company where we get most of our supplies. Unfortunately, their website is absolute garbage and doesn't have even close to all of their products. You would probably be better off calling them and asking what you would need to get this done.
http://ductcleanerssupply.com/AboutUs.php
Here is another company that has similar products. This is a much larger company, and we use a lot of their products on the mold mitigation side of our company. Here is an example of what one of the whips looks like:
https://products.abatement.com/usa/duct-pro-three-whip-power-rod-head-clear-hose.html
We also use real thin air lines that can be fed all the way down the frame. The next time I stop by our main office, I'll try to get some pictures of the tools that I used.
Alternatively, any local air duct cleaning company might be willing to clean them out for you reasonably cheap. It took me about one hour per frame rail, but I went slow and rechecked it 50x to make sure I got it all.
I followed the recommendations and cannot be happier with the results here. My 06 wasn't too bad inside, it had the usual flakes and areas towards the back. That hole in the center of the rear bumper support made a huge difference accessing the frame with the ClogHog (this thing is beyond cool by the way, worth it's weight in gold). Since our late model TJ's have the two holes towards the front already (behind the LCA brackets), drilling two more just forward of the rear LCA brackets was simple with a step up drill bit and some patience. Wear good eye-pro, metal goes all over you. I setup my shop fan so it blew away while drilling which helped a bit. As for the fancy deely contraption with the chain and drill, I had some experimentation going on. Made up a few that didn't seem to work well, in the end I found this nifty drain snake at Wallyworld that had a drill hex adapter on it already, so I used some zip ties to secure the length of chain onto it, made sort of a chain mail mace. It worked good with patience. It broke up nearly all of the larger chunks towards the rear of the frame. Air and of course the ClogHog flushed it all out. Used some generic degreaser I had laying around, sprayed it in both sides of the frame rails, let it sit for a few, Hogg'd it again, repeated twice. I picked up a nice inspection cam from Harbor Freight cheap. It helped double check the inside of the frame beyond what my shop light could help observe. I did some reading up on the Eastwood frame coating and settled on it, that company has a long-standing reputation for their restoration products even my old man told me stories of using their paints years back. 3M had another good option which I'm sure would have worked out well, I couldn't for the life of me find it for sale though. Note to others, the individual cans of the Eastwood frame coating do come with their own spray hose wand adapter, the guy on the phone couldn't verify this so he charged me for an extra one. I've used those on other products in the past (Fluidflim, etc) and they can be cheaply made or clog so it's nice to have extras. Use a heat gun or hair dryer to straighten the tiny hose line so it doesn't coil up like weed eater line (another helpful suggestion I found on YouTube watching videos for the Eastwood frame coating). I ordered it directly from Eastwood, they got me a military discount, wasn't much but good products are worth it. The most important part here in making sure the inside of the frame is dry before you spray the stuff in. I used my air compressor and let nature do it's job over two days after the cloghog cleaning. Six cans had me a lot left over but I used them all, multiple lighter coats. It will seep out every hole and nook, so if you care, make sure areas are taped off prior to spraying, same with your floor. Overall, this was a hell of a project, and was very happy to come across the OP's ideas and pictures, A+ all around. Do your planning first, make sure you have at least three days to do it, one to prep the jeep, one to clean, a few more even to let it dry, then a last day to spray the coating.
Just checking in. Eight years later, and my frame is still rock solid.
Getting started on doing this to my frame. Just blew out a bunch of sand out the inside of the frame from the previous owner, got most of it. Didn't drill any drain holes but it looks like at least in the back there were a couple already there.
Nice!! If I had a clog hog I'd use that totally.
Luckily for me it was pretty much all sand, dirt and some smaller rocks/pebbles. After I blew it out with the compressor I took it up to the wash bay and pressure washed out the inside. Sooooo much more came out. Kept flushing and flushing until all the water coming out was clear.
Gonna do that a couple more times while I'm waiting for the internal frame coating to arrive from Eastwood.
Question - I drilled the holes on the rear of each frame rail as mentioned, but on the front I have what I think is the transmission skid bolted in the frame. Can I just remove that, clean out the frame, coat it and reattach that? Or am I better off just adding a hole between that bolt and the front? (pic attached of where I would drill)
I would recommend adding the new hole as it would be a consistent drain.
I drilled mine about a month ago and then ran a Clog-hog in the frame and all sorts of stuff came out.
I then painted the untreated hole areas and applied Surface Shield (lanolin product) from Blaster.
I drilled mine about a month ago and then ran a Clog-hog in the frame and all sorts of stuff came out.
I then painted the untreated hole areas and applied Surface Shield (lanolin product) from Blaster.
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