Pretty expensive for rPod use, and I doubt it would last long at all on the bottle of a trailer. I'd suggest Fluid Film, saved me lots of problems when I lived on the Outer Banks and is also popular in Northeast winters. It's thick stuff made of lanolin so nonhazardous and won't ruin your clothes. You can get a sprayer for it, crawl under there and go to town. 

That being said, unless you're right on the beach in OC corrosion shouldn't be much of a problem for you in SoCal.  

Thank you for passing this along! I see it as a wake-up call for the rest of us.

HT... You have your work cutout for ya cleaning this up! Do you intend to? Lippert added a 1 x 2 x 3/16 tube under my frame (almost full length) and may be something you could do as well.

Originally posted by offgrid Towing operators make good coin on the OBX in summer and its almost always some clown with a brand new 4wd truck. 4wd just gets these guys further from help before they get themselves well and truly stuck.  You have to pay for a beach driving permit now to access the national seashore so they get to pay 3x, once for the permit, once for the towing, and once for the corrosion and vehicle damage. All so they can say they actually used their 4wd one time. Me, I just park and walk over and I get to pick an area where they exclude driving so I'm not having these clowns drive 2 feet from me disturbing my beach nap time.

couple of good websites or FB groups that follow and feature some very entertaining videos of beach recoveries..

I hope this very bad experience benefits all of us.

I think the owner in the video said something to the effect of, 'hey, it's 4WD, so we'll be fine'.

Yeah, I agree its salty but even the outer banks doesn't equal the peculiar slushy mix of road salt, water and snow encountered routinely all thru late fall/winter/early spring from the northeast thru to Minnesota. This year I did a little winter camping in WV and got into that but in previous years, no.

It is not cheap but it works very well. It can be found in some automotive supply stores in smaller spray cans, and can be ordered online here:

Can I ask what part of the country this trailer has been mainly operated in? Are we looking at a north-eastern tier 'rust-belt' casualty? 

From what I can see, the entire frame may be in danger of breaking in half. 

{edit: I looked at my axle mounts and they are made the same way as yours, with those 'tabs' bent under and welded to the frame.}

I believe the break is in the metal tab, due to metal fatigue, just before the weld begins.