Pulled the Land Cruiser out of long-term storage, and finally decided to get cracking on it. Condition wise, it's in pretty fantastic shape for it's age...but the rust underneath is at that pivotal point where its not quite bad enough to blow the truck apart for a restoration, but if you leave it as is, it will deteriorate quickly. No time or budget for a restoration, so lets see if I can't seal it up and buy some time.
See, it's not _bad_, but it's definitely starting. Obviously in the seams it's worse, and behind the protective flaps the previous owner added is pretty soft, but there is still lots of good strong metal left. While I'm not an LC afficianado, I suspect this particular example has had some previous owner additions to accommodate the seats in the back (among other things)
Once it was up on jack stands, I gave the entire underside a full degreasing with engine degreaser and brake clean, before crawling under the thing with the pressure washer for a full wash. Once dry, I hit up the underside with various wire wheels, wire brushes and flap discs to get down to bare metal wherever possible. The underside got another round with pressure washer (because, you know, bury the water as deep into the vehicle as you possibly can :P) and then gave it a full 24hrs of heat to dry it out. A final blast with air from the compressor told me that all the cracks and such were dry, and it was into the shop on axle stands.
Obviously, based on these next photos, I'm not really concerned with "factory look". The truck has been undercoated twice in it's life, *possibly* once at the factory and then again at some point when it must have had some body-off work done on the frame. Most of the body rust was from where the undercoating had dried, cracked and thus failed. Let this be a lesson to you young kiddies - NEVER undercoat a vehicle after paint. Only use undercoat that goes on before the vehicle is painted. #oldmanadvice
Anyways, 5.5 hours of POR15 painting later...
(the visible rust is a bolt-on panel I haven't removed yet, will do that one off the truck)
Of course my coveralls allowed the POR15 drips to soak through, so it's either long-sleeves and pants for the next week or I'll be explaining to everyone I talk to why I look like a homeless person. "No really, it's paint...it doesn't wash off."