I've been fighting rust on the roof of my truck for years. I've had several repairs done, and the rust always comes back.

One of my issues I know is that some of the rust is within the cab. This time I'm going all in, and cutting out the interior ceiling panel, and having the bodywork guy cut out any rust we can see from the inside and treating with some kind of anti rust paint, etc ...

My other issue is my driveway is a slight hill, and I have to back in to make my truck fit so water builds up in the drip rail and sits there. Even now in the middle of July it fills with water because the fog is so bad it's like misty rain. (highs in the 60's expected at my house today)

My question is has anyone ever removed the drip rail entirely?
Pros and Cons?
Thanks
-mickey

 

The answers are

Yes

Pro ? No more drip rail
Cons? Difficult to do, as there are 3 separate layers to the roof that must be merged. There are fellas who have removed them, but it ain't for the light hearted. Many threads on this, and even I asked the same questions back some 6 years ago with my other truck, which I just sold it back then, and didn't deal with the problem. Best to just search the 1st gen forum button and see what pops up. One fella posted a picture of it removed on the thread I asked about this in. Looked okay, as he did it himself.

If I ever "restore" my truck again, I would tear that drip rail off the front above the windshield, but most likely would keep the areas above the doors. My F150 had it on the doors, but not the windshield, and it worked fine.

 

Thanks I'll look for other threads. I'm having a proffesional do the work. The guy mainly works on restoring classic cars. It's not going to be cheap but it'll be right this time. I'd like to get ride of the drip rail to try and avoid future rust issues, plus mine is rusted through in a couple of places.

 

The roofs generally rust out from the inside because there's very little paint or other protection from condensation.

 

Just a thought, but has anyone tried drilling a few drain holes through the rail? Seems simple and easy.. that way the water doesn't stand..

 

Yeah that was my undoing. Where I live it's foggy for 4 months, and rains for 3 months so that's 7 months of moisture. And the condensation is the undoing. That's why I'm going to have the ceiling panel cut out, and the repair done from the inside, and treated with Por-15 or such

Yeah I did that, but it was too late. Like stated above I think the real problem is what's inside.

 

Have you considered spraying fluid film inside your roof through access holes with a 360* sprayer? It's supposed to cover and seep into any rust and keep it from rusting further.

I haven't had any experience with it but I will be doing that to my underbody, inside doors, rockers, roof etc.

 

That would have been a really good idea a couple of years ago when I had some rust repair done, but it's too late now.

 

Ah that's too bad .. Would be a good thing to consider when you get it repaired again. I have a bit of surface rust on the inside of my roof and I'm not worried about it coming through once I have everything sprayed down.

Only time will tell how well FF works though

 

Not to mention rotted gaskets under the cab clearance lamps...

I went nuts and used POR-15, then Boeshield T9 on the entire frame/body.

And spray Krown with a fogger every Fall.

 

Has anyone tried filling the drip rails with silicone caulk? Would it seal well enough to prevent moisture from getting under it?

As for the space between the top and the roof liner, could you put a couple of vents to allow air to circulate and dry the space out?

 

I have the drip rail still on my truck with no rust. With the window out, I put seam sealer in the crack where water just sits. The trick is to hurry up and smash the window seal in correctly so that water can't sit in the windows seal and pushing the sealer into the cracks and out.