Just a thought...Have you considered powder coating the entire chassis?
I've had a couple of chassis stripped (not w/ acid) and then repaired and
painted. Used RediStrip in Vancouver, BC and American Metal Cleaning in
Portland, Oregon. RediStrip uses hot caustic, and AMC uses some sort of
electrolic liquid to strip. Very happy w/ the caustic, not too happy w/ the
electrolic process (instant rusting). Both very expensive. Finally
decided to go w/ powder coating on the next restoration. The powder coater
blasts the chassis (yes, does not get inside the box frame members, but if
your frame is rotten, it is rotten) Then the blasted chassis goes to the
body shop for initial panel fitting (you can't weld and do chassis repairs
after the pc is applied) I counted over 100 captive nuts on a 3000 chassis
which I was worried that the pc would clog. Then back to the pc shop. The p
coater plugged each one of them. Baked @ 400F go get any grease/finger
prints off, applied color pc, baked @ 400F, applied pc clear coat, baked at
400F. Beautiful! Cost? About 1/2 of doing it the other ways. Note, can
not use normal body filler on something that must be powder coated. For the
small amount of filler needed on tha chassis, we used JB Weld. It is the
only thing that will take the heat.
John Snyder
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