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bogie514's avatar
bogie514
Explorer
Dec 31, 2015

Factory hitch corrosion control

I was working on my 2008 Silverado 1500 and decided to drop the factory hitch to clean it up, remove the rust, and repaint it. I would like to do something to the inside of the tube that runs perpendicular to the frame rails to clean it out and control/prevent/slow down any further corrosion. Any suggestions?

Tom
  • If you have access, sandblast the hitch then apply a 2 part zinc rich epoxy primer followed by a urethane top coat. that would be the best you could get.
  • The outside of the hitch is not problem - it is how to get inside the hitch tube which has a bend in the middle where the square receiver is welded.
  • K Charles wrote:
    POR-15


    +1. Don't need to clean the rust out, it reacts with the rust. Fill the tube, shake hitch to get the POR-15 to cover the inside, dump excess. Will not rust again....

    Adam
  • I had to get my truck back on the road quickly to tow a trailer. What I ended up doing was loop a rope through the hitch tube and run a several wadded up orange/onion bags through to loosen up and remove as much of the crud as possible. I banged the hitch vertically a few times to remove the loosened material. I then took a few rags soaked in Rustoleum that I had on hand and ran it through the tube a bunch of times, adding paint to the rags each time. For a quickie fix it seemed to work ok.
  • That Must For Rust sure intrigued me.

    To this point I always thought rust had to be treated with something like phosphoric acid to convert the iron oxide to iron phosphate.

    Anybody know how the must for rust works chemically?
  • A friend lives in salt covered Maryland. His 2006 Chevy had a hitch rusted so bad that it was very unsafe. He replaced it with a heavier after-market hitch. Look for damage before covering it up with paint.