Over the last few trips under my '05 Renegade, I've been noticing the effects of close to 5 years of driving on the beach, over winter time road salt, and the occasional creep through salt water during Nor'Easter storms.
Mopar rockrails are not immune to the corrosive effects of salt, and mine were really showing it, so this morning they came off.....
First thing I did since I knew a trip to the hardware store was going to be a part of this project, was to shoot a blast of Tri-Flow into the threaded inserts, and put the bolts back in with just enough torque to keep them in place. The Tri-Flow helped to wash out the rust and grit that were in the threads.
next I popped the plastic end caps off, sprayed the rails down with Greez-Off high strength soap, scrubbed with a stiff bristle brush, rinsed, and let dry.....
This is only a third of the rust that came out of the end of the rails, I had two more piles like this before I was done.....
While waiting for the rails to dry I took a photo of the Renny without her rails on......
Then the wire brush, slag hammer, and 80 grit emery cloth went to work on them......
Two coats of Rustoleum Hammer finish black....(Rustoleum has two grades of hammer finish, one is formulated for multi surfaces like plastics, the other is for metal....I always use the one for metal)......
And this is how she looks with her newly finished rockrails.......
I'm seriously thinking about doing the rims with this paint next......
