77 targa c3 resto week 3- mostly stripped

[jhelgesen]

Stripped a lot of paint this weekend, hood, fenders, doors, decklid. Still have front fenders, bumpers, and all the little parts to do. Overall, body is in great shape with few supprises. Found a couple small dents that were filled, and some rust on the bottom of the front fenders. Will take very little welding to fix it up.

Overall, the chemical stripper worked great, right down to the galvanizing.







Still a little clean up to do on the doors. Will probably pull the pins out to clean up the jambs and paint the bottom of the doors.











Hood stripped easy, looks great.

[jhelgesen]

Front looks pretty good, has a few spots to wire brush then POR.





Note the enthusiastic grinder girl in the background!

[jhelgesen]

I do have to ask if anyone has ever found a good method of removing pvc undercoating. We have a few spots to clean where it has cracked, will probably just use a wire brush on an angle grinder. Didn't know if there was anything better or cleaner.

[Jon Merck]

Man, wished I used a chemical stripper when I did mine. Looks like a huge labor saver. Brake cleaner will work on the undercoating for small areas, dissolves the coating into goo pretty quickly.

[jhelgesen]

This is what I love about the chemical stripper. There is nothing on the floor when I get done for the day. I pull up the plastic off the floor and its all gone.

[berettafan]

Wow, nice job!

What's the approximate cost savings vs. sending the shell out to be media blasted?

Will you still be sanding whats left to get a good base for primer?

Erik

[jhelgesen]

I'll have about $70 in 2 gal of aircraft stripper, plus plastic, gloves, etc. So probably $100 total. In one weekend, we have about half the car done. Another free weekend and we should be able to have the fenders, bumpers, and all the little bits stripped.

After a little body work, we'll scuff and wash the galvanized body for primer. Still looking to see if I need to use a zinc prep on the body, at least in the places the galvanizing is gone. Going to use a DP40 epoxy as the base.

[M.D. Holloway]

John - any reason you didn't get it soda blasted?

[jhelgesen]

Mainly, I live in the middle of freekin nowhere, and would have to haul the car a couple hours to get it done.

[M.D. Holloway]

I'm gonna strip mine down one of these days. Trying to figuer the best method. If you had the opportunity to soda blast or chem strip would have you still opt'd for the chemicals?

[jhelgesen]

Thats a tough one. Chemical stripping is cheaper and you can do it at home. Media blasting is dry and probably faster, safer to your body as far as nasty chemicals go. Prob with media blasting is the dust gets everywhere, every nook and cranny, where the chemicals wash away with water. Guess it comes down to how fast I would want it and how much I had to spend.

[Jon Merck]

Next time I'll use chemical stripper. Any other method makes a huge mess in your shop and car. I still find chips of paint in various places from my project 5 years ago!

[jhelgesen]

Next steps...

77 targa c3 resto - week 4 (sort of)

[rw7810]

John - Can you tell me which product you used and your technique in using it. How many layers did yoiu have??

[defcon65]

John, is the stripper product methylene chloride based? How are you disposing of the waste product? Does it require a forced air ventilator or just a filter cartridge mask?
Looks great! I've always wanted to do a full-on resto, maybe some day.

Regards,

Joe

[jhelgesen]

Bob,

Used 1.5 gallons of "Aircraft stripper", big blue can with an airplane on the front, available from most autoparts stores. I had 1 paint job over the factory paint.

Pretty much followed the instructions as was discussed in the paint stripping 101 thread.

Paint Stripping 101