Winterizing a California vehicle for Minnesota climate

[efficientrider]

just wash you car after every snowstorm and youll be fine

[Chris D.]

test run..









This stuffs thick..

cab and bed come off later this week weather permitting..

For all the nay sayers, you've never met an obsessive compulsive with fabrication and body skills

[Chris D.]

Wuddup Frank!

[Chris D.]

LOL more than likely.. I say bring it..

[ebacherville]

Im from MN, rust will get past you sad excuse for rust proofing ... rust gets every thing eventually.. no way around it..

Im actually gettting the hell out of MN.. the winters suck.. with fuel costs its getting prohibitive to heat the house.. I have a very efficient new home and its was $500 a month to heat the house..thats propane and 2000sq foot.. next year I bet prices will be 50-75% higher..

As for cars.. get a new good battery and we use lighter weight oil in the winters.. and also plug in the cars when its gets 30 below out. other wise the oil is jello and it wont crank over.

If you dont know Minnesota winters.. i wish you luck.. they suck, and this is coming froma life long Minnesota resident..

My advise is get out while you can

[Chris D.]

Originally Posted by ebacherville

Im from MN, rust will get past you sad excuse for rust proofing ... rust gets every thing eventually.. no way around it..

Im actually gettting the hell out of MN.. the winters suck.. with fuel costs its getting prohibitive to heat the house.. I have a very efficient new home and its was $500 a month to heat the house..thats propane and 2000sq foot.. next year I bet prices will be 50-75% higher..

As for cars.. get a new good battery and we use lighter weight oil in the winters.. and also plug in the cars when its gets 30 below out. other wise the oil is jello and it wont crank over.

If you dont know Minnesota winters.. i wish you luck.. they suck, and this is coming froma life long Minnesota resident..

My advise is get out while you can

I'm orignally from Coon Rapids MN..
Winters I can handle.. I wore shorts all year around..
Try northern Canada.. ouch..

I've already got plans for a block heater and an aux battery to power it when parked and unable to plug in..

I plan on coating the frame with rust converter primer then hitting it with the bedliner.. Thats about as good as its going to get for preventing rust..

Once or twice a year I'll just go through it.

Do you live in Northern MN?

[ttoyoda]

Those pics look great, and the coating looks great.
The problem will be all those drain holes in all the frame members.
The salt will get inside and just sit there forever. I would suggest oiling the inside of all the enclosed frame members. Up in Vermont I understand they use chainsaw bar oil. There is a kit you can get that has long probes with nozzles and lets you spray inside enclosed areas.. I saw it on a Citroen DX forum, somewhere.

[Chris D.]

oil based expansion foam and aluminum ducting tape to cover the holes, then the rust converter, bedliner

[ttoyoda]

Do you mean you will fill up the rails with foam completly and thus displace all the free air?

What is oil based foam?

[Chris D.]

never seen expansion foam? oil was a typo, I ment silicon..