The front suspension crossmember on a 1967-1972 GMC/Chevrolet pickup is a couple of large pieces of shaped metal welded together. The cross member is essentially hollow.

The out side portion had previously been blasted. Today I was going to remove a couple of spots of surface rust and then paint it. While getting ready to blast, I noticed that the inside was full of greasy dirt. The right thing to do seemed to be to clean it out. First I used a scraper to remove most of the gunk then I attempted to use the blaster to clean it up.

About an hour into the process and completely covered with sweat and sand, I asked myself "Why am I cleaning this out?" It is almost impossible to see into and once it is mounted back on the truck, you will only be able to see the gunk if you have it up on a lift and your crazy enough to climb underneath it.

I finally decided it was not actually an obsessive compulsive desire to clean but rather a desire to do a complete and thorough job on the truck. Perhaps I will be able to finish up this cleaning task sometime this week.

Needless to say, I did not get any painting done today.