4th gen rust thoughts

Hey new here and I joined hoping someone could ease my mind or let me know what more I could do

My 08 v8 runner has 92k miles on it and everything is perfect about it besides I noticed some rust on the frame. My question is, does it look like a wire bush and rust converter will be enough? Or is this a sign of bad times to come. market is good right now should I cut my losses ?

I was really hoping to do a 3 inch lift 1 inch body and do some cutting to fit 35s as the end goal. Should I look for a cleaner rig to drop money on?

thanks any options are very much welcome. I hope I can just wire brush and spray her and she’ll be good for another 6 years with monitoring.

 

Welcome from Wisconsin! It may be 'beyond' wire brush, but not un-do-able, take care of it now, before it's too late.

 

That doesn't look too bad. Throw a wire wheel on a grinder and then treat it.

 

Dang this makes me sad. It took me forever to find this one with only 90k miles. Guess it’s time to sell….

 

What!? That doesnt look that bad to me, at all! I wouldnt even wire brush it. What I would do instead is “lock in” its current state by coating the frame with a heavy coat of wool wax. Then drive it down a dusty road so you get a nice coating of dust on it. Get inside the frame rails.

A 13 year old 4runner cant get much cleaner unless it was from an arid climate.

 

I live in colorado. I’m just worried because I don’t want to spend 5-6k dollars on it only to have the frame rust out. But I’ll try taking care of it first and see if I can get most of it fixed. Any recommendations on how to insure inside the frame is fixed too?

 

It’s probably not going to rust any further in colorado.

Look up Wool Wax. Lots of people have posted on doing that or Fluid film, which is the same lanolin, but thinner and stinkier.

You can buy Woolwax by the gallon along with a sprayer if you have an air compressor. You can get wands to thread into the frame holes and spray inside. Make sure to spray inside the side rails, and each crossmember starting at the radiator support, then engine, transmission, rear tube crosstube, and rear bumber crossmember.
If you dont have an air compressor, you can buy spray cans that include wands.

i live in the rustbelt and want to avoid any rust on my new OR. Dirty wool wax looks like crap, and you have to clean it off firs if you need to wrench on an area, but it should hold off rust. The coating is pretty durable. But it’s not paint, it plain old sheeps lanolin, not toxic, and kinda naturally stinky. The stink goes away though.

edit: 4runner rust control is something you have to actively monitor and address. Just a fact. But being in colorodo, I would worry a little bit less.

 

thanks for the tips. I’m gonna wire brush and wheel away as much of the rust as I can. Convert it and then cover it like you mentioned before winter comes. Hopefully doing that once a year will keep it good.

Sounds like if I take care of it it should be ok to lift and build then? I started ordering part for a 35inch tire build right before I saw.

 

Colorado is pretty bad about rust. My 2013 looks about the same.

 

Sounds like a reasonable plan. In those pictures, im not seeing anything other than surface rust.

Only you can really put eyes on it though, but if you can scratch off rust easily to bare metal without seeing thick scaly rust that chunks off, I think you’re golden and you can feel good hanging expensive parts on that thing! Get under there and put eyes on all the areas where mods are going in. I bet you dont see anything scary in those areas.

If you put a nice thick coat of wool wax on it, I bet it would go further than a year in Colorado

 

really? Isnt colorado where all the clean unicorns come from? Are there areas in the state that use salt on the roads?

 

Not sure if this is meant to be sarcastic, but Colorado uses magnesium chloride and half the time they spray it aerosolized from trucks full of hot water so it gets everywhere.

They also like to mix road salt with gravel so you get sandblasted and rusted at the same time.

The only places worse for rust than Colorado are the Midwest and New England.

 

Also, with respect, I’m suspecting Coloradians may not know what rust really looks like.

 

Responding on top of each other, my apologies…

i wasnt being sarcastic. I really thought colorado was land of clean solid underbodies and blown engines from mountain climbing.

is the chloride used all over the state?

 

Guys Im looking at the pictures more carefully, and I just dont see any of the rust that is even close to structural looking or concerning. It really looks superficial in my eyes. For a 2008, it looks incredible. Maybe Im just easily pleased?

 

Another thing, if you are going to wheel away the rust, the converter application won't do much in my experience. Consider rustoleum farm implement paint, and just brush on paint.

Or really, youd be fine just soaking it down as-is with wool wax. But prepping it for paint after that will be difficult.

 

Magnesium chloride is used statewide, yes. They’ve been pressured to use less of it because environmental groups are complaining about salination of rivers and streams but that’s beside the point, the crap is everywhere.

That is not bad rust and there is no structural rust damage in the pictures OP provided.

And I will never buy a truck from Colorado because it’s guaranteed to either have hail damage or rust damage, or both.

 

that’s why I jumped on this one so fast. No hail was rare with no report of insurance and seems like the rust is easily fixed. Thanks for the info