I have one question. Im doing my sas swap this weekend. and im painting everything such as the motor mount plates, shock hoops and ubolt plates. Anyone who has used the trail-gear kit, have u had any problems with rust because there seems to be alot of items that came bare metal. im using rustoleum black spray paint hoping i can get the paint to stick good and not come off if i pressure wash the front end in the near future. Does the pitman arm need to be painted i cant really tell if its coated or bare metal? Thanks in advance everyone

 

Dont paint it before you weld it, as you need to paint afterwards. No, you dont need to paint the pitman arm.

 

Everyone and their sister has one of those kits. You've joined a pretty large club.

Rust is going to be dependent on location. If you see a lot of water, salted roads from winter driving, etc, you'll see rust. Dry climate, not so much. Rustoleum seems to be good stuff for painting those parts. You could also look at appliance paints. Those work REALLY well, but aren't too "bling" so may not be what you are looking for.

EDIT: I'd paint the pitman, apparently, its not required.

 

weld....clean......paint......repeat.

 

Their parts are bare metal bathed in oil. I used brake cleaner, primer, then a good painting. I painted everything, underneath, sides, everything. Hell I even painted the front U-Bolts silver to match the rear plated ones. The areas that needed to be welded I left bare or sanded down then repainted. I wasn't going to go through all this work and have my parts rusting from underneath. It's funny how many rusty SAS Parts on trucks I see. I guess I can't understand doing all that work and not taking the time to paint.