Lake at the End of the Road

[Dave Haller]

Anybody interested in posting damage done to their trailer, tow rig or regular ride after driving through the lake at the end of the road in August.
My trailer is new, now needs brakes and backing plates. Was pressure washed when I got it home but still was damaged by the brine.
My 1998 one ton Dually, two wheel drive, 454 Vortec got a bath in the brine over a five day period. Got home pressured washed it all down underneath twice over two days. Front rotors, bearings, pads both sides destroyed. Rear brakes gone due to rust not wear. Replaced it all to the tune of $1600.
If I ever show up down there again and see a lake at the end of the road I'll turn around and drive it back to town and wait for the stuff to dry or enter another event rather than go through that expense again.
The truck only has 61,000 on it.
I'm sure there are a bunch of you out there that have the same story if not worse.

[1212FBGS]

i dont take any of my stuff on the salt any more.......oh by the way dont buy a used Penske truck eithor
kent

[jimmy six]

It's the nature of the beast. Personally I've never used a pressure washer with any of my trucks. I will never do that. When I get home I drive the right side of my truck on the edge of the curb in front of my home. I use a lawn sprinkler which I've attached to a 6' stick. The sprinkler is one which has multiple sprays with small spinner in the middle. These are available in any hardware store..


I move it down the truck from front to back keeping it between the curb and the drive shaft. Aboout 45 to 60 minutes. I then turn the truck around and do it again. I rotate my tires once and year and that's when I do it. I also use 4 mud guards and have added additional plastic protection in the wheel wells. I also coat the bottom of my truck with cheap floor wax from Smart and Final before going on the salt even if it dry.

Trailers are definatly harder in my opinion the drums must come off to clean everthing. I waited 2 weeks to to it and they were a mess. It took a flapper wheel to clean off the drums. I also have mud flapps on the back wheel of my trailer which reall helps that area.............JD

[Bob Drury]

I buy 73-79 Chev or GMC 3/4 or 1 ton pickups with dead motors for around  600-1,000 bucks, install my running gear, drive em for three years, and do it again.  In ten years I have gone thru three, and will be on number four this year.  454, turbo 400 w/ gear vendors, 4.10 rear, massive oil and trans coolers, auxillary 16" fan, and the latest trick, fresh air intake thru hood which gave me about 5 mph up the 6% grades.  The only thing good after three years are the hoods, so I have plenty of spares.  J.D. is right about the trailer brakes, they need to come off right now when you get home.  I have started coating the springs and retainer nails with anti sieze, but you gotta clean the magnets and mating surface with scotchbrite and then put something like dialectic grease on them.  p.s.  There ain't anything fun about trying to back off a brake adjuster after a liberal application of Bonneville loctite... especially laying in about two inches of salt water, circa 2006............ 

[SPARKY]

I save some of my oil changes---dilute with diesel---put in garden sprayer---spray---everywhere--before going
 When get back--following JD's advice--I use a WAVE sprayer---across and long ways---both ways---takes all day -then the oil treatment again !!!

[1212FBGS]

the speed limit signs arnt there to keep the wake down for the little kids on shore....i use to blast through the water until one year the Penske started running really bad around Ely... the air filter was clogged crusty white..!....Dave just wait till ya start havin electrical problems.!... sell her now.!...
kent

[Brian Westerdahl]

  Dave have you tried Salt Away.  It works pretty good.  Take one of those garden sprayers and spray everything down before you leave for the salt.  Then as soon as you get back pressure wash as you have been but then coat everything with Salt Away again and it neutralizes the corrosion pretty much.  It is not perfect but you can tell that it is doing some good.  Brian #7796

[Seldom Seen Slim]

There was salt under the pickup -- and even using the garden sprinkler it took quite a while.  The sprinkler would get the salt off from one side of the frame rail(for instance, but then I'd have to move it to the other side.  In other words, back and forth the length of the pickup, back and forth across the width, too.

As for the trailer, which got a double bath (in as we arrived, then out to the bend in the road for Salt talks, then back in, then out to go home) - I did a complete brake inspection when we got home and was amazed that things were pretty clean in there.  All brakes worked, all wires still looked like copper, not green toothpaste, and so on.

With that little mention -- I'll be selling the trailer this spring and getting a new, bigger one.  If you're interested let me know -- I'll put photos and an ad in the "for sale" section soon.

[thundersalt]

By oct I had to do a complete brake job on the truck. New rotors and calipers.  Alternator is now making noise. The hole engine compartment got nailed when Celia made a quick trip back to town failing to stay close to the cones and found the big hidden hole at the end of the road. Good thing it's 4WD. She said the wave came over the hood to the windshield. When we got home, I spent the day cleaning the truck, car, and trailer in the drive way which is along side of the neighbors back yard. 3 days later, I noticed that his plumb tree that makes a mess of my drive way was dead. Oh well. Last spring I bought a new Pac West flat bed trailer. It is painted rattle can white. I did not have time to put a better finish on it before speedweek. The other day I took a look at it and it now matches the Fairlane. Definetly more salt related problems this year for us than in the past.

[F104A]

Another trick is to finish up all the water washing by spraying the
undercarriage and other parts with white vinegar.........then spray
the whole thing with a 50/50 mixture of power steering fluid and
paint thinner. It stinks, but it works!

[Dean Los Angeles]

If you dump a bunch of salt into a glass of water and come back a day later, you will still have a bunch of salt on the bottom. Once it crystallizes it takes a long time to dissolve. It doesn't take long for the water to become saturated so that might explain why you have to run the sprinkler for so long. The pressure washer isn't as good a tool because we expect it to blow off the salt, when dissolving it over a long period is what is necessary.

When you have a super saturated salt lake like the end of the road, and waves are coming up over the car and spraying every possible surface, then you really have a fight on your hands.

Considering the damage Dave described I think the Penske approach might be worthwhile.

[Richard Thomason]

Volume and time are the key to cleaning. One other thing to be aware of when running a gentle sprikler for hours under a rig, plug the diff. vents or you can fill them with water.

[Clay Pitkin]

Here in Utah, they use salt on the roads in the winter time, which plays havoc alot with paint. When I first started attending speed week, I to did use a power washer or car wash with hot soapy water. I was told that there was two items here that were horrible. One is do not use hot water because it opens the pores of the paint up and allows salt to penetrate the paint. The other is high pressure, this also drives the salt into the paint. I was told to simply take a garden hose with out a high pressure nozzle, and let it run on the salt until it accumulates so much water it just falls off and plops on the ground. It takes alot of time, but it does work. Then for the under side, I just lay under neath it for a couple of hours and spray every nook and cranny and hope to heck I get it all.

I did have one experience where I tokk my old camp trailer on the salt. It was a 68 canned ham aluminum trailer. I had so much corrision in the light sockets, it was not even funny.

As far as the lake at the end of the road, I look for high and dry places to go, and crawl through the water. Knock on wood, my trailer is the only thing I have ever had problems with.


Also the truck and trailer get cleaned and washed before the dirty clothes get removed

Just my 2 cents worth
Clay
 

[jackson]

I've taken two different Ford F150's out there the last few years.  My 2002 model received a good hose down when I got home but it was already starting to show some heavy rust by the time I lost a wreck with a 1 ton dually in '05.  My 2005 model hasn't received any washing when I got home just the heavy rains we encountered on the trips home.  It still looks good underneath.  I am starting to have some problems with wiring on the lights now though.

The trailer is another story.  Dad built the trailer several years ago with 1/4" diamond plate flooring.  When we loaded the trailer in '05, the front tires of the race car fell through the floor.  This year, the back axle fell off the trailer in the middle of no-where Kansas.  Again all rust related.  We limped to the next town at 20mph and had good luck.  There were probably only 3 business in that town and one of them was a 1 man welding shop.  We didn't even have to unload the car from the trailer.  He hooked a boom lift to the back of the trailer and lifted car and trailer so he could weld the axle back on.  We were back on the high way in a little over an hour.

[Larry C]

The best you can hope for is a good rain storm on the way home. Salt Away works very good before and after combined with the sprinkler under the vehicle. I run my sprinkler under the truck for three or four days, moving it regularly. Next best (probably best overall) is buy a beater, put in a good power train and repeat a few years later!