Being offered a 2001 Disco 2 for free and while it has other issues that need to be sorted out, I wanted to get other's opinions on the frame itself. The car only has 80k miles, but is from Oregon (where I'm under the impression that salt is not used on the roads) and now resides in a major Midwest city that very much has a love affair with salt in the winter. After checking it out it looks mostly like surface rust that can be treated (no holes or thin spots that I could punch through), but I wanted to get the opinion of people who have more experience with this cars than I do.

 

Being from Michigan...l'd scoop that up in a minute. Much better than most here, and looks good enough to me to save. I'd do some wire brush work, knocking off loose scale and repaint. Probably the lack of oil leaking from engine, which is rare, caused the crossmember beneath cats to rust. Most are oil soaked and solid underneath the grime.

 

Looks fine to me. Especially if it’s free. I would absolutely clean it up, and repaint and treat it, but it all looks to be just surface rust with nothing gone through.


It might be a PITA to remove some of those bolts, so just always order new bolts when replacing parts underneath.

 

That's what I thought, thanks guys. Any recommendations on products for treating the rust?

 

assuming your after a do it yourself application; Get yourself an 8$ 1 gallon pump sprayer from HD.
change the oil in the truck, and full half of that pump sprayer with your used oil. Add a bit of diesel, (a quart or so-ish) to thin the oil so it goes thru the sprayer easiest

 

There may be a chance that the truck was undercoated at some point. The lumps of the undercoating may look in the pictures like rust lumps. The picture of the control arms confuses me most, I have not seen control arms that rusty, I think maybe undercoating on the arms is making them look like they are covered in rust nodules. Try smoothing the surface of the control arms to see if the bumps are rust or something else like undercoating or dirt.

 

Look at the youtube videos of rustoleum rust reformer and fluid film.

 

I used a product called WoolWax it comes in black and clear
you will need a compressor capable of maintaining 75 psi
I purchased their kit with 4 quarts and a decent spray gunIt stays damp never dries and can be touched up once a year if needed

 

I wire wheel or wire brush and then do a nice heavy coat of gloss rustoleum. I've started using the Rustoleum Turbo Cans - makes quick work of it and lays on thick.

 

https://www.woolwaxusa.com/
CK out this link rust oleum paint will work for a while but rust need to be starved of oxygen in order to try and stop it from spreading WoolWax does a pretty good job in doing this. Plus when you purchase their kit you get 2 additional extended nozzles to get inside rails and hard to see or reach areas
Good Luck !