What to remove undercoating

[sketchers356]

Tc-sacto,
This is incredible!
I think that i will probally try it.
Thanks for the great info.

[randywebb]

Back to the rust...

Examine the surface very carefully -- and probe it. Anytime you find a crack, rip away what is underneath. Leave the rest alone. That will be pretty safe in terms of finding likely rust areas, and not be as exhausting as stripping the whole thing.

[svandamme]

Originally posted by sketchers356
Thanks for all of the replies guys.
Stijn were those rust spots visable before you removed the undercoating? It is finding stuff like that which makes me want to take off the undercoating. It seems like this is quite the task. Would it be better to just deal with the areas that need attention and leaving the rest alone? Or as it appears in Stijns case this undercoating can deteriorate leaving unbeknowst rust.

the rust areas i found before stripping , where the areas a found after stripping , the only thing that changed, was the size of the spots..

the brown areas , on the floor pan , those aren't rust spots as such , thye metal was still smooth , and i don't think it would have rusted through any time soon...

the real bad areas where known , i just didn't know how far they went ( bottom of the wheel arches )...

still , if i were you , i'de start stripping, and get the whole floorpan done anyway ( with the wire brush , it goes pretty fast, once i realized that, did mine in about 6 days , 3 weekends )

also , you need to recoat the spots you strip ... and i don't think you'll get the best coating , if you only strip the spots and then recover those localised...and when you give the whole underside a new coating, you basically give the floorpan a new lease of rust free life

you can get a reasonable idea of what's below , if you take a blunt metal rod, and a hammer... then inspect the floor pans... rust like i had, the metal will give way , and then you know you have a hole...

[john70t]

Try this: Wave a propane torch over a small area to just heat up the undercoat but not burn it. Wait a few seconds fot the heat to penetrate, and scrape off.
Too much heat and it melts and makes a mess, plus the carpet glue probably melts. Just right and it practically peels off.

Morris Kline's "Mathematics and the physical world" and "Mathematics in western culture". Daniels Boorsteins "The discoverers" are easy reading.

[svandamme]

at some point i tried it.. but i wouldn't recommend it.. it takes a while before the carpet glue is soft enough , and before that happens , the tarstuff get's real smokey ... fire waiting to happen if you ask me

and you still spend scraping till you grow a tennis elbow...( if you want it to be uber clean )

the cheap paint stripper costs about 4 bucks a jar.. you'll need a bout 6 jars... and no risk of setting fire to anything...
the stuff i used was gooey oout of the jar... sort of in between thick liquid and jelly, very managable..

it just get's down and dirty with the under coating... takes a bout 10 minutes to do it's work..

the wirebrush will effeciently do away with the resulting gooo.. and doesn't care much about uneven surfaces... jagged edges of metal and so on... it just makes it go away...