I know most people probably will never care what the underside of a car looks like, but I do! Right now my car has no rust on the underside, its just the grey primer with some overspray here and there which I'm guessing must be the way the cars came from the factory based on other people's pictures. I was planning on undercoating the whole underside, but reading other threads on it sounds like undercoating might not be the best idea since it can make things rot out even faster

Other than paint, is there anything you can do to the underside to give it a nice clean, uniform look?

 

One of the more common things to do is use a rust encapsulator like a POR-15 coating.

 

i've seen people coat the underside of a car with bedliner coating.. looks like it works pretty well..

 

I sprayed mine down with marine clean from POR-15, pressure washed it and then sprayed a few coats of primer.

 

I undercoated the whole bottom side of the car, even up into the transmission tunnel. I made a crisp, defined line between the blue engine compartment and the trans tunnel/underbody. I used POR-15, works great, just don't get it on your skin. I had it on my arms for 3 weeks, even got it on my face but luckily I got it off with paint thinner before it had time to dry.

 

Shoot, forgot to mention the DONT GET ON SKIN warning. I've used POR-15 chassis coat on my kmember, a-arms, strange 12 bolt and a few other things. POR-15 Engine paint. TRUE, don't get it on you because if it dries you'll either be sanding the skin off it stained or waiting till it "wears" off, which is about 3-4 weeks.

 

Yea I used thinner on my face to get it off real quick, which burned pretty good. I wasn't too worried about my arms, but that didn't wear off for a good 3 weeks.

 

I just clean mine!!

 

I'll have to look for that POR-15 stuff, that looks nice!

 

There is some stuff on this site called rust bullet. I think you can get it in a silver finish. I have never used it but have heard good things about it as well. Por-15 is the most common though.

 

Scott, very nice work. A 15k mile car though is a breeze to clean Nice pic in Camaro Performers btw.

 

Not when the car was undercoated with Rusty Jones wax based undercoating!! Sorry for the bad pic, but this was after I started cleaning it up.

 

I used Eastwood's Extreme Chassis Black paint. It worked really well, and went on smooth. Held up with no chipping or flaking all summer. They have gloss, semi gloss, and flat... Black!

I have some pics but not here at work. I'll try later if people want to see it.

 

I power washed, cleaned my with chems then primmed it and used a undercoating. . . The real problem with using a undercoating is the prep work if theres sand, salt or dirt etc and you spray over it, you'll encapsulates it and creates pockets of lose material or deber or things that can absorb moisture etc. its really no different then paint other then it wont flake or indicate that a areas starting to rust till its to late in most cases.

 

Very nice FueledSoul, thats exactly what I want it to look like when I'm done!

I ordered some POR-15 today, I'm going to do the entire underside with that first and see how it turns out. Might end up doing some undercoating or chassis coat on top of it too.