Dustless Blasting for Undercoating?

[crahill39]

I am trying to figure out the best way to get the undercoating off my Coronet. My garage is too small for a rotisserie keeping me from doing it the old school way. I was thinking of having the whole car chemically dipped (non-acid) and primed....or have a dustless blaster come to my place just for the undercoating and possibly the hood (off the car)? Any advice to share?

 

[HALIFAXHOPS]

You going to laugh. Easy off oven cleaner works great on the factory applied coating, then powerwash it off. Seriously.

 

[crahill39]

You going to laugh. Easy off oven cleaner works great on the factory applied coating, then powerwash it off. Seriously.

How long does it need to sit on the undercoating before it loosens up?

 

[HALIFAXHOPS]

20 min or so worth a try in a spot. Use only easy off not the dollar store stuff.

 

[c.moo]

I use two cheap harbor freight heat guns and putty knifes and wire brush , took awhile .

 

[Fran Blacker]

Was a thread that mentioned dustless blasting said it stuck all over the place.

 

[eldubb440]

Was a thread that mentioned dustless blasting said it stuck all over the place.

I cut open a car after someone did the dustless blasting thing....... the **** was caked everywhere........ and the sheet metal was warped to **** anyway


seems like a gimmick to me, I've gotten through many jobs just fine without it

probably good for removing graffiti from brick and concrete..... but that's about it

 

[crahill39]

I wouldn't dustless blast the entire car, just the underside and the hood (off the car).

 

[5wndwcpe]

Putty knife and a heat gun. The undercoating is usually too thick and somewhat soft for blasting, at least dry blasting anyway, without using a ton of media.

The dustless method may work better, but like Mark said, it's makes a helluva mess.

 

[eldubb440]

I have a selection of flexible scrapers....... I keep them sharp and round the corners so they dont dig in, makes for east scraping....... I like a propane torch

 

[R413]

Dustless blasting SUCKS!

it makes one hell of a mess, that’s why they come to your house to do it..

The media is packed with water into every creivice of the body and it is not easy to remove. And your driveway now looks like a beach.

Many blasting procedures do not remove undercoating because it bounces off the undercoating. The guy the screwed up my car tried to blast off the undercoat and just made it look like hell with little bald spots all over. This is after I told him “do not touch the bottom of the car”

I hear the way to remove undercoat is dry ice blasting. The dry ice turns into carbon dioxide and the ony residue leftover is what comes off the car.

 

[hunt2elk]

A cheap needle scaler from Harbor Freight works great on undercoating, the thicker the better.

 

[gkent]

Conventional blasting does not touch undercoating. I have no reason to believe
"dustless blasting" is any better.

Chemical dipping - been there, done that. NEVER again.

I removed all the old hardened stuff in my wheelwells with a needle scaler. In my opinion, less messy than spraying it and scraping.

 

[Fran Blacker]

If you have no gas tank in the car. Blow out fuel line you can jack one side of car up 30" to 36" and block it SAFELY. Rent a kerosene heater with a blower heat up an area. The shut down heater and scrap hot area. Repeat as needed. Had front fenders off my 65 Dodge and heated inner fender panels. The undercoat/sound deadner was 3/8" in spots almost fell off, easy scrapping.

 

[BigFlo]

Needle scaler for undercoating works well. Dustless blasting the underside of the hood will pack that wet mess under the cross braces with no way to get it out. Strip the top side with a rotary strip tool or DA sander. Did my hood in a couple hours with Eastwood’s Surface Conditioning Tool. Depending on how bad the underside is, wire brushes, rotary tools where they fit and by hand.

 

[gkent]

Rent a kerosene heater with a blower heat up an area.

Isn't Florida hot enough that the stuff is dripping Off ?!?!?

 

[Tony Tee]

A heat gun with a putty knife and wire brush. Then hired the neighbor kid at $10 per hour worked out great!

 

[crahill39]

Isn't Florida hot enough that the stuff is dripping Off ?!?!?

It sure is!

 

[The not so tall man]

I have seen videos of people removing rubber from the inside of the car on the floor by dumping dry ice on it, letting it freeze, then it comes off super easy. I'm wondering if it's coming off due to it being cold, if that still wouldn't work. You could take out the seats and carpet, put a bunch of dry ice in the interior and while it's cold scrap from underneath. I'm guessing it would take longer because the cold would have to penetrate through the steel before freezing the rubber. May be something to think about. Or real thin stuff I've used gasoline on a rag...

 

[HawkRod]

If your car is gutted with no interior, then using a torch on the inside floor boards works great. This loosens the bond between the undercoating and the metal without needing to melt all the undercoating. You heat the metal, then scrape that same area from underneath. The undercoating falls right off, even when it is really thick.

It works!