Crossmember full of sand...normal?

I'm rubbing down the back of my crossmember and giving it some rust treatment and stonechip, but when pressurewashing it I stuck my fingers in the ends of the crossmember where its sort of boxed in around the jack holes and its absolutely packed with sand or some other crap. Anyways its near impossible to get to with the bodypanel covering it.

To cut to the chase, is this a typical place for buildup and how the hell do people go about getting the crap outta there? I guess its time to pump waxoil everywhere!!!

Yeah - thats why it rusts away to nothing, moisture is trapped.

It's road silt and mud, anything you drive over gets thrown up there, years ago I got a plate cut which was the shape of the crossmember,it had a little wing on it which bent out and round the side a little, it served two purposes, plated the giant hole I had in the old one and also stopped crud getting in the end of the crossmember - if I was changing a chassis I would plate the ends and seam weld the crossmember joints, I would put drain holes into the bottom of the tow bracket hole tube sections too as water sits in these, I would also plate up the gaps and then fill them with oil and waxoyle.

As you say it is not the easiest to get at for cleaning purposes, best bet would be to try and get a hose, jet washer or airline in there and blast it out. Once cleaned out leave it to dry for a good wee while before you paint or seal it or you will trap moisture in.

I just want to run an idea past everyone, would it be ok to put a drain hole in the bottom of the crossmember underneith the jack holes? that way I can pressure wash and the crap will actually go somewhere!! What sort of size hole will I get away with on an mot, or would it not matter?

On my old series trialler I had holes cut out of the rear tub so I could jetwash right down each end of the crossmember. never had any trouble with crap building up.

Sometimes took longer to clean me drive after though.