I've reached a decision that I'm going to go ahead and have my chassis cleaned and restored from all the rust. I'm confident I will have to separate the body from the chassis, but not sure what all is involved there. Does anyone know? Has anyone done this before? Also, is anyone aware of a really good Chassis Restoration company here in Texas?

 

I like this question. I have considered this myself. I don't have a lot of rust but taking the body off would allow me to get into every nook and cranny for rust removal. Let me know what you find out!

 

I'm getting ready to do this to my GMC truck. I'm not going to attempt to remove or raise the body though. Yes there will be some tiny areas that I will ultimately not be able to get at but I just do not think it will be work the huge amount of additional work. With the other work I'm doing to the truck I do already have the rear bumper off and have the fan shroud and mechanical fan removed (converting to factory electric fans), and plan on pulling the nerf bars and all 4 fender wheel linings out which will give a LOT more access to some areas.

On I am doing different is I'm not using the trendy POR15 (I've also used it before and its also excellent stuff). I'm using Chassis Saver from Magnet Paints. It is basically the same thing. Both are moisture cured urethane coatings. I like the satin finish Chassis Saver ends up with a little better is all. On either one, if you want it to truly adhere though, you must literally get the metal rough. No coating of this type truly bonds to very smooth steel, you can get a knife at any of them and get it to peel off. With either one, as long as you are not physically gouging it with something to break through the coating it should be fine. I think Eastwood has one that is an aerosol spray with long tubes if you want to really go all out. With that you can also coat the inside of the frame. I'm not going to that extent though. Still going to be a lot of work regardless even just doing what I'm going to do. To pay someone to do it (with the proper preparation and right coating), I can only imagine the costs would be quite a lot. Especially if you want them to go to the extend of lifting the body and detaching the majority of the suspension, pulling all wiring, tubing (fuel/brake/trans), cables, etc away from the frame (and coming up with some way to hold all of that far enough away from it) in order to truly and fully coat the entire frame. In the latter case, I'd imagine you would be getting into several grand in just labor.

Just gaining somewhat more minimal access by removing the body bolts, not as bad. I am considering that on my GMC. As long as you only lift it about 2" you can usually get away with that without having to detach much of anything. Best done with a vehicle lift but doable with a couple of jacks and a set of jack stands. Any further and you generally need to disconnect the steering linkage, radiator hoses, and potentially a whole host of other things.

 

I would just lift the body off. You would need to remove the filler neck, chassis grounds, unplug the PCM, radiator hoses, A/c lines, brake lines, shifter cable and then slowly lift a little to double check there is nothing left. It sounds scary but its not that bad and if you are doing the job you should do it right since it is so involved and messy.

 

I tried POR15 and I am not overly a fan. As you mentioned, it can be peeled off which is completely true. It looked and seemed to work great during my rust removal I did a while back. The waxy crap all over these 2s makes it a pain to put anything on them.

 

How did the project go? Did you ever do it? Still doing it? I can't imagine taking my H3 apart like that. BUT...it would give me opportunity to stick in that Perf. Accessories 1" body kit. I figured it'd be just enough to get the tire out of the back of the wheelwell for me

 

I have not begun yet, though I do have more insight in terms of what I plan on doing which is to separate the body from the chassis leaving the engine and transmission intact. I plan on media blasting the frame and parts of the body showing corrosion. I'm going to powder coat the frame and then dust it with the GM 12378398 rubberized undercoating to make it look original. I also plan on replacing the brake lines, jounces, and engine mounts, and anything else that is rusted while I've got truck separated. Now, I just need to find someone here in Central Texas that will allow me to tie up their rack for awhile as this work gets done.