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I think some chemicals like lacquare thinner might soften it up and I think I even herd of people using kerosene to soften it up. Just use common sense with all this becouse all of this is a recipe for a fire
With a few lawyers in my extended family, I have always found that ANY kind of manual labor, honest work, or physical task requiring even the slightest effort is excellent Lawyer Thinner....they just seem to thin out and disappear! The worst was my late stepfather, who, although dis-barred, was a true liberal and thought all blue collar guys ought to work until age 75 in order to feed the poor. He had no idea that a life of leisure as a lawyer was less taxing on the body than the life of a bricklayer or construction worker or mechanic. No Clue. Thanks for the morning smile!
A prior owner had my car undercoated. Anybody have a good technique on how to remove it? Thanks
I had to do this task on my '67. Tedious and messy, but it came out very well.
The solvent I used was "mineral spirits," which is often labeled and sold as "paint thinner" in hardware stores. It is commonly used as a thinner for oil paint.
This solvent is much easier on your skin and lungs than lacquer thinner or carb cleaner. It is also not very flammable. This is my preferred solvent for oil-based grunge on car projects.
The undercoating on my car was a tar/asphalt material that was readily dissolved by mineral spirits, although the process was a bit slow and required some help from plastic scrapers and Skotch-Brite pads. I found it helpful to spray or brush on the mineral spirits and let it soak for a while before I began the removal process.
My approach was to work on just one small area at a time, maybe one or two square feet. I would get that area completely cleaned before moving on to the next section. When I got tired I would stop and return to the task the next day.
I was delighted to find that the fiberglass floor was very well preserved by the undercoating and looked beautiful after it was cleaned. Looking at it today you would never know the car had once been undercoated.
Good luck with this and try to approach the task with a zen-like patience. If you can remain calm and patient, you will be pleased with the end result.
I just completed this back breaking task on my '64 Coupe a few months ago.
Most was done laying on my back with Body on a body dolly. But when it came to back breaking was when I had to sit on a stool and do each wheel well. I'm 6'4" and didn't fit well at all, especially unpleasant while using heat gun. But after a solid week of cleaning was extremely pleased with results.
I ended up removing most metal pieces and completely redoing, then riveting back in place. Even had to replace the back corner body mounts as they were rusted away. I also sprayed the wheel wells black after completely stripped and prepped for paint.
I used a heat gun and metal scrappers. My undercoating was very thick and it took a lot of muscle and multiple applications to remove. I also used Spay; Paint; Graffiti Remover, that I got at Home depot that really helped with clean up. Oh, and lot's of paper / shop towels.
01-15-2017, 04:39 PM
How do you remove undercoating?
