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I have decided to leave the truck I am working on all original. I plan on going thru the brakes engine and tranny but want to just cleanup loose rust and apply something to protect it. Not much paint left on this one but you can still read stencil ing on doors and box. Has anyone done this? What did you use to treat the cleaned up rusty metal?

I've heard lots of good things about Owatrol. It's available from Amazon.com - here's a link that describes what it does and the price: http://www.amazon.com/Owatrol-733-Oil-1 ... marine+oil

If your looking to do something like I did with mine I can help out.

yes,cleaned up steel wool or light wire wheel, and wax it. you can accent it with some flat paint or use the plastic bag treatment.

Yes - that is exactly what I was looking at doing.

Okay. If you like send me a p.m. with your phone number and I'd be more than happy to explain how I went about it.

mac, what is a "plastic bag treatment"? That's a new one on me.

Guys, I'm just impressed looking at these pictures, leaving the trucks with the patina while keeping them mechanically sound.

Keep up the good work.

Well, this was my wife's (the Crosley driver) idea. When I restored the cab, I had to weld in lower door patches and new panels under the gas tank.These didn't match the patina of the rest of the cab. While prepping the metal, before waxing, I used many flat colors to "blend" the repairs in.
I also added some other patina to the finish. The process uses a crumpled up grocery bag and spray paint. You crumple up the bag and spray the paint on it and then splotch it on the part needing patina'd ,making new look old. Wish I could do it Backwards for me. Then I put on some paste wax. I left
in a few small dents and some nice old era hammer welds on the finders. Gives it that experienced look, of the Hard life the truck had before I rescued it.
Mac.......

Excellent stuff here. I like real work truck look too. A technique that has worked well for me in the past is to mix transmission fluid and dish soap in warm water and use a fine scotchbrite pad to scrub it down then polish it with a dry cloth, removing the chalky oxidation and leaving a matte sheen. The oil helps to stabilize the rust and paint without sealing moisture into the pores of the rusted steel, and it is pretty low cost and low maintenance. The bag trick gets really nice results, but especially on larger areas it is easy to fall into a repeating pattern. I have seen lots of nice work that looks too uniform to appear natural. I think deliberately and randomly mixing it up a bit helps achieve a more believable look.