One of the consequences of spending the last 3 winters in the salty air of South Padre Island is camper van rust. A lot of rust. I’ve tackled some minor rust issues here and there on Usain in the past, but it was time to put some major effort into it. With Lisa on her Iceland adventure I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

Running Board Brackets

First up was the running board brackets on both the driver and passenger sides. This is involved taking off the running boards and working on each bracket individually. Each bracket is in 2 pieces bolted togeter, with 1 part riveted to the van.

Overall, the effort wasn’t that difficult but was very time consuming. I used metal wire wheel brushes attached to my bench grinder (for the pieces I was able to remove) and to my drill (for the pieces still attached to the van) for the majority of the rust and then rust resolver gel to complete the job. After that it was emery cloth and steel wool to clean them thoroughly followed by a couple of layers of grey primer and then finally black rattle-can paint.

Solar Panel Brackets

Next up on the rust removal project were the solar panel brackets. As you can see from the following photo, the paint was literally peeling off many of the brackets exposing the rust underneath.

Taking care of the solar panels wasn’t nearly as time consuming as the running boards since the brackets are smaller and fewer of them. However, they all had to be removed, sanded down, primed, and repainted. For these I mainly used a sander loaded with emery cloth followed by the gel rust remover to rid them of rust.

Rear LP Connection Bracket

We haven’t ever used the external LP connection (for hooking up an external grill/stove), but its bracket too was in need of rust maintenance. I didn’t want to remove it from the van so all of the work was done with it still attached.

LP Tank

This is actually the third time that I’ve done rust maintenance on the external LP tank. In the past I mainly focused my work on the control guard (see Propane Control Guard Mod). Below are some pictures from the first time that I worked on the tank itself after a couple of winters in Texas.

The work involves removing the control guard, covering the valves, wire brushing the rust, painting, and then putting it all back together. In the past I only used grey primer, but this last time I added a couple of coats of primer + paint.

To be continued???

Given the amount of work that I put into the rust management this time around, I’m really hoping that it doesn’t return for a while. We have reservations in Arizona instead of southern Texas for the upcoming winter so I’m hoping the dryer air will be a bit more friendly on Usain’s exterior.