RocketMouse

Do ya'll that use FF use it all year or just Wintertime?
I'm close to the coast now (an hour away give or take)... and want to combat this crazy surface corrosion that seems to be enveloping the underside of my once very clean XJ... I want this thing around for years to come if possible...so I know that means preventative measures to make that happen.

Opinions or personal experience running it all year are very welcome

TrailerTrash

I apply it in the fall before it starts getting cold. I dont use it on every single part underneath. I only do the inner rockers, insides of the doors and hatch, and on some things here and there. The underside of my XJ is pretty nice and everything got a coat of paint and Chassis Saver a few years ago.

I absolutely do not go all winter long without washing out the underside. I periodically go to the car wash and use the soap then hot water to rinse the underbody and suspension parts thoroughly. I dont let the salt and snowy road crap get comfortable

robsjeep

Year around if coastal salt is issue, coastal salt is not seasonal. But if the jeep remains dry, the effects of the salt are minimized, as perhaps in the summer.


I just yesterday krdered a gallon of their thick product, and a half dozen aerosol cans of their thin stuff. want it for the underside, and between armor and bkdy, frame stiffeners and body, inside doors,.

BlueRidgeMark

He's on the Gulf Coast. There is no such thing as "dry".


All year, Rocket. All year round.

Ralph77

At the moment and for quite sometime now I just use it in the Winter.
I power wash under the Jeep in October, blow dry it off, let her dry more after that, and go to town.
Use about a 1/2 gallon, maybe a little more, each time.
But I own a compressor and the gun kit so I can buy the gallons.
IMO Fluid Film is not a less is more thing.
I lay it on thick and heavy.
I spray it inside the uni-body and the tubes that support my factory running boards.
Wish I had drilled holes in my rockers, bought some rubber plugs to close them up, and sprayed in there too.
Going to start but it is a little late in the game for that.
In the Winter I will run the Jeep through the $5 wash bay at the car wash occasionally.
I do not pay the extra $1 for the underside. Fluid Film will eventually wash off.
Every piece of crap on the road will stick to it.
Come April I power wash it off.
The only reason that I don't run it year round is cause I am still working on the underside of the Jeep.
Messy as hell under there when trying to do things.
But I will spray Fluid Film in certain places in April.
One thing I do is use PB Blaster with the Fluid Film in certain areas.
For instance for a couple years now I have been soaking down my suspension bolts with PB Blaster.
And "sealing" it in with Fluid Film. Might actually get my new suspension on this year. LOL.
I do the same with the E-Brake adjustment area.
I just think it is a crappy design being open like that.

When I did washer pumps after I installed them I doused them in Fluid Film.
Hey maybe it will be a little longer before they get all crusty like the ones I removed are. LOL.
Now when I get to a point that most of the work is done underneath I am thinking of running Fluid Film year round.
Apply in April and see what it looks like under there the following April.
If it lasted cool. If not maybe start giving it a lighter spray in April, power wash in October, and lay it on thick like I do.
Come April do it all over again.
Couple things about Fluid Film.
You will never get all of it off the Jeep again.
When I power wash I always see places I missed. Oh well.
I am betting that there is still Fluid Film way up under the Jeep in nooks and crannies from the first time that I did it. LOL.
Also IMO Fluid Film will "condition" metal.
The very first time I did it I noticed that my front diff and steering knuckles were a little "rust red".
Not scaly rust though. Thought to myself come April maybe I will clean that up a bit. Maybe paint it or POR 15 it.
Well in April when I washed it off I noticed that now my front diff and steering knuckles were more a "mud brown".
To this day I never did "refresh" them. LOL.
Also I was not sure how the rear diff breather was set up. All I knew was that hose attached to the white nipple on the uni-body.
So in the beginning I did not Fluid Film that section of the uni-body inside. Thinking gunking the breather in there would not be a good thing.
Later I moved the rear diff breather up to the engine compartment with some hose, clamps, and used the "top hat" breather that the front uses.
Did the same with the tranny and TC breathers too.

So now I could Fluid Film that section of the uni-body and also not worry about gunking up the tranny and TC breathers way up there around the tunnel.
In hindsight, thinking I will change it at some point, I should of attached the new breathers for the tranny and TC on the passenger side.
I don't know why I ran them all over to where the front diff breather is cause they are located on the passenger side already.
The rear diff is already on that side so that I will leave where it is.

RockyMtn96XJ

Since I moved to Denver the "monthly car wash membership" thing has become big and I can pay the same price as 2 car washes, but its unlimited car washes every month. I'm not sure if its big here because of the winter road conditions and EVERYONE needs a car wash after it snows because of the stuff they lay on the roads combined with all the dirt and dust that accumulates as well (it is very dry out here when not precipitating). So instead of pressure washing the underside of my jeep a couple times, then the prep work and actual application of the FF, I would have to guess that paying $25/mo. for unlimited car washes with the underside cleaning should be as effective as slathering on the FF and hoping it doesnt come off before the last snow storm of the year. We just got 6 more inches last night and its supposed to continue for the next day or so a little bit.

The bonus is, the car wash by my house has all the different color foam and colored lights at night, so its fun too. Hahahahahaha.... At least my kids love it...

So who thinks 4-5 car washes a month (with driving around for 10 minutes to dry it decently) would work instead of FF? The underside of my jeep is in good shape to begin with. I know water can get stuck places, but oh well.

superj

those car washes are very popular here, 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile from the gulf coast here in south texas. they threw three or four of those duck car washes up, here in corpus Christi, in less than a year and those suckers are packed.

if those car washes are saving people's cars who drive on the beach to go fishing, it should be fine for you in the snow

00t444e

Once every fall for me but If you live on the coast you should do it more often.

RocketMouse

yeah... Im in the big city just a little over an hour or so north of the coast in Galveston..... so yeah...while not directly on the coast, any weather that comes up from that direction probably has a salinity factor to it higher than other places.

RocketMouse

That's good logic until you factor in that the farther south you go in TX....the more humid it gets...and that humid air more often than not is coming in from the gulf. So you don't have to be in a rain-storm to be affected. just out in the humid gulf air is enough for it to start the surface corrosion in motion.

XJlimitedx99

I'm up in the rust belt. I've never used Fluid Film on my Jeep, and it shows. With this being my first vehicle that I've had for many years, this was really the first opportunity I had to see the affects of rust first hand.

I've been doing a good amount of rust repair recently, and have been researching what products I want to cover my work with. Does anyone here have experience with CRC's 06026 Heavy Duty Corrosion Inhibitor? I see a lot of comparisons pairing it directly against Fluid Film, and it has come out on top in many experiments. I like the idea of it because it cures dry, so it doesn't collect dirt like FF, and it also is much more difficult to power wash off. The only downside is it does not creep into nooks and crannies like FF. I'm thinking I'll use the FF with the hose to get into the unibody rails, inside doors, etc, then use the CRC on the majority of the underbody.

RocketMouse

Not saying other products out there don't work....but in all the structured independent tests/experiments I've seen... FF has always come out on top of the pile every single time. I'm not paid by them for that (wish I was)...but just my honest 2 cents of the research I've done on it.

RockyMtn96XJ

I grew up in Houston and don't miss it. The city or the weather.
Although I was only 22 when I left, times must have changed from an environmental standpoint because I dont recall any of my families vehicles or friends vehicles driving around with rust anywhere on the cars or trucks. inside or out, visible or not, paint or undercarriage. Even old cars from the 80s... I never saw them with rusted out fenders, rocker panels, muffler falling off, etc..... We made our fair share of trips to the Galveston area as well, which is only about a little over an hour drive south. I also used to spend a lot of time on the coast bird hunting over the years and none of our trucks got rusted from driving in the marsh mud and water...

This could be because the vehicles were prepped differently for the environment down there, and if a vehicle comes in from somewhere that doesnt get rusty, it doesnt have the protection needed for humidity and salt. but that may also be completely untrue hahha...

RocketMouse

I'd be skeptical about vehicles being prepped for a specific region...unless basically all dealers did it as a standard practice when they were sold new.
Anything's possible, but I doubt that one...

And maybe I'm being picky as I don't like ANY kind of corrosion on any of my vehicles.... period. I mean it doesn't look like this..... but I don't want any at all... very minor surface rust underneath is okay...but have to tackle it so it doesn't get worse

RockyMtn96XJ

Yeah I'm sure its a dealer option to have a vehicle prepped.
I just have to guess that since you have a 22 year old vehicle its probably a little more susceptible to corrosion since anything that could have been there for protection is now gone.
On the other hand, I guess the reason I never saw any vehicles with rust is because they were all recent year models back in the day. Nothing was 20+ years old that I paid attention to. Even my buddies '86 Supra was in good shape since it was only like 10 years old.... Im sure if I did see a rust bucket, I was too young, ignorant, and didn't care enough to realize it could have been from the environment, and I always just thought it was just a POS car.

BTW...... now I'M wanting to get a layer of FF under my XJ now....... thanks a lot!!!!! Hahahahahaha