Thousands of dollars of damage are looming beneath the skin of my beloved 1985 Jeep J10 pickup, and there may be nothing I can do to stop it. The cause? A suboptimal body design with strange metal creases and enormous voids that trap water and dirt — voids that I cannot get to without breaking out the cutting disc. Here’s a look at this unfortunate situation forced upon me by Jeep engineers.
I love my Jeep J10. I think it’s the best vehicle I own because of its style, and above all its simplicity. The straight-six engine under the hood will never die, the four-speed manual transmission probably won’t either (and if it does, I can fix it in my kitchen), the cooling system is oversized, the driveline is as tough as nails, and on and on. The truck has everything one could want in a classic pickup: a bench seat, a stamped tailgate, four-wheel drive with manual locking hubs, a stick shift, a regular cab, an eight-foot bed, a gun rack (not that I need it), and absurd amounts of soul.
View this post on Instagram
It’s for these reasons that I will never sell the J10, which is why I am so concerned about the rust problem threatening to cost me thousands of dollars if I don’t act quickly.
Take a look at any Jeep J10 for sale today (I’ve included some above), and — unless it’s been restored or spent all of its life in a dry climate like Arizona — I bet it’s suffering from significant rust on the bedsides, just above the crease that separates the flat center of the bedside and the more arched lower bedside.
My Jeep J10’s bedside still looks good. There’s a little bit of rust at the crease, where dirt and moisture has gotten caught in the crack from the outside, but it’s nothing major. “How have I avoided the rusty fate of so many J10s?” I’ve spent far too much of my life wondering. Perhaps it was because my truck, which only had about 72,000 miles on it when I bought in North Carolina, always had a cap over the bed and was stored inside a big pole barn. I’m really not sure, but noticing the bedside rust problem on so many other J10s prompted me to dig into the cause of the issue so I could keep my J10 from crumbling.
That led me to the Full-Size Jeep Network forum, or FSJ Network. There, someone named bbelongia wrote a post in 2015 titled “Bed seam rust – why it happens.” That post includes a cutaway drawing of the inner structure of full-size Jeep bedsides. I’ve drawn my own version below:
You’ll notice that there’s a big void between the inside of the bedside and the outsider. Anything that gets into that void is trapped. The bottom of that void, where the most dirt and moisture settles, includes a tiny channel between the outer bedside and a sheetmetal crease (you can see the innards if you click on that forum link; bbelongia cut his bed open). This channel lets filth get into a void below (called the “rust area”), allowing the grime to rest against the outer bedside sheetmetal. Over time, the dirt and grime making contact with the outer bedside — from the inside – yields rust, which gradually eats its way through the steel until it’s showing through the paint.
Shown above is the “rust area” of my J10 — a little channel just above the bed seam that you see on the outside of the truck; this is where where rust tends to form. I decided to check out the state of this rust-prone area by sliding under my truck and drilling a hole into the bottom of the channel (I drilled between the welds shown in the diagram). What I found was alarming:
Look at all of that dirt! Hell, I’m not even sure “dirt” is the right word; it’s mud! There’s filth and moisture trapped in that channel! If I don’t cut this open, remove the dirt, and treat that channel, my bedside will rust out, and — given that the bedside isn’t just a straight piece of metal (it’s arched) — the repair will not be easy. Or cheap.
In many ways, the Jeep J10 is a great example of what not to do to avoid rust issues. There are far too many unsealed junctions between two pieces of sheetmetal, and those junctions lead to voids that take on dirt and moisture but can’t be cleaned out. Take the rust starting to poke through the front of the truck, just below the grille:
My first thought was that I could just take out my turn signal lenses and clean out that area behind the metal:
But nope:
A similar issue exists with the hood:
Look at the two pieces of metal jammed up against each-other, unsealed, with plenty of space for dirt and moisture to get in between. The result? I’ve already got a few pinholes in my beautiful Brooks Stevens-designed hood. Damn:
Other problem areas include the door jambs, which collect water if the vehicle is left to sit too long:
The bottoms of the doors also act as swimming pools until they create their own drains using Fe2O3 as a battering ram. Here’s my Jeep Cherokee Golden Eagle’s door, which is the same as the J10’s:
The Golden Eagle also suffers from a horrible rear wheel flare design. Check out the J10’s design; notice how it’s open:
The Golden Eagle’s rear flare is a boxed-off section with a gigantic void that traps crud.
The result is that the J10’s flare looks like this:
And the Golden Eagle’s looks like this:
These vehicles want to return to earth. But I won’t let it happen. The J10 is my forever-truck.
David, as more than a bit of an expert in rust myself…
Everyone who has posted so far is completely dead wrong. Shit like POR15 (which is crap,) ‘rust converter,’ ‘special magical oil,’ take your pick – it’s all shit. It’s the quarter inch of Bondo treatment for rust.
Nope. Y’all sit your asses down. I learned from someone who was a bodyman before any of you were born, and who probably restored more than $10M worth of Mopar royalty. I can’t block sand to save my life, but you goddamn well better believe a man who salvaged a true basket case ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda Convertible that had a completely rotted out unibody knew his shit. And you better believe I paid attention to every thing he tried to teach me.
There is only one cure for rust, period, and that is to section and weld. Period. Everything else is just hiding it, and it WILL return with a vengeance. Except now it’ll be FAR too late to address it. If it’s through the metal, it’s INSIDE the metal. You can’t ‘chemically treat’ the rot that is literally inside the crystalline structure of the metal. Period. And sure, you can insist till you’re blue in the face that cutting it off from air and water halts the progress.
And you’ll be wrong all day. You cannot hermetically seal something spraying shit from a rattlecan in your driveway. And you can’t treat the internal structure of metal with something applied to the surface with a brush. I live in an area with far worse rust than David, because every road gets chemically treated into literal oblivion. If there was something other than grinding, cutting, and welding that truly worked? Not only would I know, I would be screaming it from the rooftops. Incessantly. It would be “The Autopian, brought to you by RootWyrm spending a shitload of money he doesn’t actually have just so he can demand everyone buy this amazing product RIGHT NOW!”
No, seriously. I’d do it.
Yes, it’s painfully expensive. And painful as hell. Believe me, I know that all too well. I’ve seen first hand what it takes. I’ve done the welding on complex shapes not unlike the J10’s. And anyone who says it doesn’t suck or that it isn’t that bad, is absolutely not somebody you should trust with body work. A real professional will tell you the truth: there is no way of knowing how bad the rot is and how much will have to be sectioned until you start cutting. It might be intruding a quarter inch past the pinhole. Or I might still be finding tell-tale striations nearly a foot in. And no matter what, cuts and welds on complex shapes like this is extremely difficult. And it takes decades of experience to know how to read the metal correctly, much less guarantee a cure.
The slightest overheat could put a wave into the whole hood, for example. Too cold and you’ve created a new guaranteed rot point in the door. Especially if it has to be sectioned. Even if it doesn’t, matching those curves? You need someone who’s a true artisan with the body hammer after a trip to the English wheel. These are skills that may as well not exist any more. In a modern insurance focused body shop, you’re doing whole panel replacements, adhesives and high precision semi-automated welds, and paintless pulls.
I’d kill to be able to refer you to the guy that did the SSJ, because there was literally nobody on earth better at permanently restoring SJ bodies and frames. Note the past tense – they hung up the Tyvek for good in 2016. The guy I kept on backup? Retired in 2012. The only person I have with the required skill set that I could recommend probably would be willing to take it on, but they’re booked solid for at least 12 to 15 months as of last week and that’s assuming hiring two more. 🙁
This is the most rootwyrm comment of all time.
Restore it like you restore an XKE. Pull all the parts and interior off it and bring the shell to the specialist who sells you another complete cut and rewelded shell which you put your parts back on to.
Except its a Jeep not a 100K Jaguar
David could remove every rusted part and use electrolysis to remove the rust then reassemble it. Probably cheaper but where is he going to put the giant pool needed to fit it in LA.
Drill holes, pressure wash if you can, then spray on the insides with Woolswax. I do this on all my cars. It helps a lot.
I can’t remember what the automotive equivalent is, but if this was a steel bike, it sounds like a job for drilling weep holes and treating with frame saver.
I had to look up photos of the J-10 a friend had a dozen years ago, but yep, the bed was starting to show rust. I’m glad that truck went to someone who intended to properly restore it.
I noticed this on my Wife’s 2010 Grand Cherokee as well. There were all sorts of places for road salt and water to collect and go to work.
It is like they want to fall apart so you buy another one.
FSJ Network is like a living Bible of Jeep knowledge. Where would I be without it?
Also: I convinced my wife that our ’87 Grand Wagoneer had to be garaged if we wanted to keep it forever, and she’s allowed it! Rust, be gone!
Article title with the words “Jeep” and “Rust” in it. By Line can only be one man!
Ah, that explains why so many people assume my equally rust-prone International pickup is a Jeep.
Clean that crud out of there. Then soak the void with some creeping rust preventative. If anything the new crud will help the rust preventative stay in place.
The design goes back to the Kaiser Jeep days, I think they just figured out how to build them but did not consider long term affects. I had a 68 Jeepster Commando that i got in high school when it was 10 years old (1978), it was a total rust bucket, rockers were gone, floor all patched up. holes in the body side panels where the wheel wells meet the body. (hey it was cheap for a high school kid) The lower rocker panel seam was spot welds, no efficient way to allow water to escape. The rear wheel wells were spot welded directly to the outer body panel where rust grew in between. It was my first real body work project, ended up looking pretty decent. Surprisingly it still survives, the guy I sold it to 30 some years ago has it in northern Michigan at his summer place, although I don’t know what it looks like these days.
I came here to say similar things. Most of this design was drawn and engineered somewhere around 1960-62. In that era, vehicles just didn’t last very long – if you got 10 years/100k out of a car or truck, you were one of the lucky ones. I don’t think the designers or engineers would have given a second thought to what happens after the 10 year mark.
My ‘70 Jeepster Commando lives at my Up North Michigan summer cabin, came from a guy in Texas that owned it for 30 years. It is still solid but every nook and cranny is filled with red west Texas clay dust. I’m convinced that if it ever saw a salty Northern winter, it would dissolve back into the earth.
looks a lot more solid than it should be. wonder if it had a topper to avoid water into those bed channels?
It’s ironic that all that tough butch styling contributes to it’s fragility. I guess that’s the Jeep cosplay.
Looking at all these recent crossovers with slapdash plastic cladding makes me shiver. How much salt and moisture will that ‘tough’ stuff trap? I guess modern metallurgy will help a bit. On the other hand, those things will likely go to the scrapper before signs of rust since the electronics will age out or become unrepairable. Sad that we live in such a throwaway society.
Was the J10 designed by an Englishman? This,reminds me of dozens of Practical Classics articles about repairing the complex sills of 1960s BMC products.
Realistically, you need to make drains, clean and treat the rust to preserve it. Stuff like this makes me glad I live in a dry climate without road salt.
Time for a new er GOOD truck. This one is done.
I know it is painful to hear this but you really should just dump your entire fleet before you move west. Fire sale, get rid of it all. Start over again with desert cars that are rust free, and not just upper midwest “rust free”. You don’t need to live like this.
Yes, but there are some vehicles we just bond with and see as more than just ‘a car’ – I imagine that is a big part of that Jeep J10 for David.
It’s the same for me, except (laugh all you want), that car is my 2009 Hyundai Accent hatchback. It’s a cheap Korean econobox, but I LOVE the thing and have gone through a lot in my life with it and it’s more like a loyal pet than a car at this point. Any time I see rust starting through, I take it to the local body shop and get them to repair it before it gets worse. It gets rust-protected annually as well (the salty roads here in Nova Scotia would murder it in cold blood otherwise). I hope one day, when I have my own garage, to keep it for a good long time and retire it from daily use, RadWood style…I don’t care if it goes up in value or not (it won’t…), it means a lot to ME, and that is enough to make me spend money on it more than most sane people would. I imagine David is in the same boat, except he has the skills, tools and space to actually work on things and I, sadly, do not.
While you could cut out the areas you need to, clean, treat, then re-weld, I’d take a less invasive approach.
I’d opt to treat that channel like the inside of a frame rail (I regularly hose any debris out of mine). Drill one hole at one end, between the two spot welds, then another channel at the other end, and possibly one in the middle. I’d then proceed to blast, blast, and blast again streams of water through the the channel by way of the holes. When I’m done, I’d blast compressed air through until I was satisfied. You could then use aerosol POR15 or naval jelly followed by Rustoleum. Then I would make sure to treat the open metal created by the drilling and put in rubber plugs, or simply weld them shut.
Maybe blend some hexchrome with the water, just in case any of it collects in there instead of draining out
Or just coat the whole damn truck in bedliner. Even the glass. That’s probably prone to rust too.
Once the metal under the bedliner disintegrates, to fill it with air and have a truck shaped balloon.
There was a PBS Nova episode last year called Beyond the Elements where they coated all kinds of stuff in Line-X material. Pumpkins, piggy banks, flower pot, etc. and then dropped them off a high lift. My 9-year-old loved it.
Or fill it with helium and then he’ll have a flying truck!
I was also going to suggest POR15. But first fix your rear springs. An empty pickup should not have a level bed. It should be higher in the back so that when you load it lowers to even or down. Then drain holes at the front of the bed big enough for water and dirt. Go all out and make them big enough for drain plugs. The raised rear forces the water to the front to drain. Then pressure spray at least once a year and after each load carried. Rustoleum paint around and below every hole. Let dry before putting drain plugs back in. The best rustproofing is rust prevention. But POR15 is great because it seeps into the places water seeps into. And washing the vehicle regularly keeps debris from piling up enough to block your drain holes, and letting it dry before replacing drain plugs doesn’t trap the wash water.
Why can’t you try the Krown oiling rust prevention treatment like you did on the 1965 Plymouth Valiant winter experience?
Or is that an environmental hazard now?
Ouch: it’s such a classic style of truck that the rust is just painful to see
Krown rust control. It creeps into little spaces like that. And yes, they drill holes in some areas to do it, but it does work.
If you truly love and want to keep the truck, I am betting you can find someone (maybe even a reader?) to make repairs, and find a Rustoleum that is close enough in colour to work. Don’t let it become one with your backyard.
Huh. I always assumed the fender arches on those were fiberglass. Maybe they should have been…
Nope, which seems completely nonsensical, doesn’t it? Fiberglass is cheap and rustproof! The folks at Kaminari made beautiful shapes with nearly zero budget! Surely AMC could have done it, right?
Well, no. Working with fiberglass in mass production is absolute hell. Kaminari can do it because they can take an extra 30 minutes or 2 hours to fix the laydown, and however long to rework any bubbling or imperfections. Can’t do that on an assembly line completing a car every 180 seconds or so. So you’re now talking injection molded fiberglass or glass fibre injection molding.
Which is VERY expensive even today, and was orders of magnitude more costly in the 1970’s. Especially if you needed the consistent quality of a mass production manufacturer.
I would bet you anything that AMC would have absolutely killed to do parts like that in fiberglass. But the technology and the money just wasn’t there.
Prepreg is pretty fast, or SMC. I use it a lot at work and it’s very fast with great surface quality.
They were able to move to some sort of plastic (ABS? Their brand name for it was Kraton) for the Eagle’s flares and rocker panel extensions, and presumably used the same stuff for flares on the XJ.
Just remembered, too. The full padded vinyl top was standard on Eagle (and ’80-83 Concord) sedans because the rear quarter window was hand-cut into the C pillar and the padded top covered any crudeness to this. The few fleet sedans built without vinyl tops had the old four-window Hornet profile.
I see a lot of EvapoRust and Phosphate conversions in your future.
I wonder if you could drill enough holes in the underbody of the bed, then pressure wash the crap out? Still leaves you with the rust, but you could plug the holes with something and then fill the void with EvapoRust to convert the rust to good(er) metal? I feel as if it would slow it until you could get a serious repair going?
Also, I’m gonna say it here, loud and proud. POR-15 sucks. At its base it is a phosphate conversion, there is nothing in its formulation that actively prevents rust. You’re paying for the name and however many decades of that name’s recognition.
Go with something that isn’t a watered down formula, then seal with paint (which, given the area… good luck.)
I have had wonderful luck with a product called Masterseries. It’s similar to POR-15 but is so much easier to use. It’s even sandable. Things I treated with masterseries are still holding up 10+ years later, including a set of brake calipers. Plus you can actually store it. I tried storing POR-15 once and it glued the lid to the container.
my 2006 dodge has similiar issues over the rear wheel fenders and along the lower portion of the cab. My fenders finally rusted through last summer and I did a (poor) patch job that’s mostly covered with the fender flares. I drilled some holes for access and used some existing factory holes and try to do a good job cleaning it out every fall, then shoot as much fluid film in there as I can then cover the holes with some rubber tape. Probably won’t stop the corrosion, but will hopefully slow it down. Wished I had started doing that when I first got the truck
Maybe we shouldn’t have blind devotion for a vehicle brand that makes such obviously bad decisions without a care about the future owners of their products. David Tracy loves them and has made a living documenting the endless list of bad Jeep designs. Then again, I own a Lotus.
I’m not devoted to any brand, really.
I just like 4x4s with solid front axles.
There is a river in Egypt and its called de-nile 🙂
All kidding aside David good luck it really is a pretty truck!
Brett
My parents specifically sought out a Bronco II with manual front hubs (in 1989 or so). They took a bath on the Shelby Charger they traded in, but that inverse-jam-sandwich (red/white/red) Bronco lasted long enough to trade in on a stick-shift Contour in August or so of ’95.
So, a lateral move then…
Really? REALLLLY??????
Some car company fanboys remind me of battered spouses.
“IT’S MY OWN FAULT I’M SO CLUMSY!”
Hasn’t that vehicle made it long past the point where Jeep should care if it is rusting?
In Britain that would be considered “rust free”.
There, though, people with the skill to repair rust and willingness to do it abound. Here it took me a month to find somebody to weld a floor repair panel in my Morris Traveller. He’s a four hour round trip and I was lucky to find him.
I am normally against the notion of one moving to California, but the southern rust-free environment will be kind to your fleet.
I think California does not allow toxic waste to be dumped in their state.
COTD
I’m just looking forward to the article on how to make a 37 year old jeep pass emissions…
My juvenile mind read that as “looking forward to the article on how to make a 37 year old pass emissions…” heretofore…an article on farting.
Then I re-read with the Jeep inserted. (hehe). Still funny.
I would read that farticle, even if it stinks.
It just has to pass the rules of year of manufacture. As long as it isn’t actively belching smoke, it can probably pass.
David got an abandoned diesel minivan through a German vehicle inspection, dealing with a simple California smog test should be easy.
Perhaps by electrifying it with a newfangled motor (or two [two electric transaxles equals one 4×4?]) and a half-dozen Nissan leaf batteries under/inside the treated, sectioned, and reinforced, eight foot bed.
That’d be a neat project.