Frame restoration

I've found at least a couple pounds of sand and dirt inside the frame of my '67 Commando (and even a mouse nest). It came from the desert of Eastern Washington.

Is this normal?

Not that I care it 's a solid frame, but I'm thinking it might have spent a few years stuck in a riverbed or mud hole or something like that.

Anyway, I'd like to clean-out and paint inside the frame. If anyone has done this, I'd like to know how you did it.

 

Pretty much normal. Power washer and lots of water. As far as painting the inside of the frame, haven't done that but if you could locate an undercoating setup you could probably make that work. I was thinking of a long tube with the end plugged and four small holes drilled 90 dgrees apart you could stick inside the frame rail and get full coverage. You could also adapt it to fit a Shotz or similar sprayer gun. I might work on that over the winter so I can do the inside frame on the Half Cab I'm building for the wife.

 

I was thinking of using an old metal Garden sprayer to spray Ospho (phosphoric acid) into the frame followed by thinned-down enamel.

 

You don't have to use an old sprayer, just get a cheapo plastic one at Home Depot or Harbor Freight. I blew out the inside of my frame at the car wash. A Hotsy steam cleaner would be ideal, but those are hard to come by. I didn't spray Ospho or paint inside mine though, I had it powdercoated. I plan on spraying the nooks, crannies and seams of my tub and sheet metal with Ospho before I paint it though.