Removal of tar and junk

[Jiveslug]

Hey again everyone. I know this topic has been hit on before, but I wanted to see what everyone thought on it once more. Im at the point here where I need to remove all of the tar and junk from the floor board of my TE72 (80 Corolla in Toyota-speak) and want to make the process as painless as possible. Is it just me, or is removal of the interior one of the most annoying task with building a racecar? Who knew there was so much junk in there? Im talking about a 25 year old car too, not a modern one with all of the extra electronics! Anyway, I digress. Ive heard people mention that you use a heat-gun and just scrape away at the tar, but Ive also seen it said that you can stick some dry ice on the tar and then whack it with a rubber hammer :bash_1_: . While the science geek in me thinks the dry ice idea sounds like fun, how effective is it? Is there another technique that I havent heard about (basically other than these two)? Thanks again for all the help!

Ryan

Oh, btw, one of the reasons I bought this Toyota to race is because its pretty much bullet-proof. I have now discovered that when a car is that bulletproof, it doesnt exactly come apart easy. Its like being dissassembled is against its nature or something. Heh. B)

[JamesB]

hahaha, I think its just interiors in older cars where built to stay in for life and then some. As for removing the adheasives the trick used by many is dry ice. It makes the adheasive brittle and you can chip it away.

The germans are as bad as the japanese, they just like to secure things with as many fasteners as they can think of.

[charrbq]

Now is the time of year to remove the stuff. I don't know how cold it is where you live, but we still get in the 30's here in the winter. To remove the stuff, I took a chisel, paint scraper, and hammer to knock out the big chunks of stuff during the cold of winter. Works great, but both time consuming and effort intensive. Then I took some low priced, foaming engine cleaner (many cans) from Walmart and many rags to dissolve and remove the remaining chips of the stuff. It's not that bad to do, but rememeber to have ventilation or you'll join the blob on the car floor.

[zracre]

I just finished dry icing an interior yesterday...it works great...you will find spots where the tar is stuck to the seam sealer and the dry ice wont touch it...so i found ionce you are done with the dry ice routine and have it pretty much done except for the stubborn little areas, hit it with a heat gun then thinner real fast...wipes away pretty easy.

[charrbq]

Evan, what do you do with all that dry ice after you're done?...throw a keg party?

[JamesB]

I used to use it alot for custom stereo installs. And by the time I was done there wasnt much dry ice left at that point. But I did love to make the natural fog machine with the leftovers.

[charrbq]

Custom stereo installs? I assume on cars, not houses. But, either one I've never heard of.

[JamesB]

Yes on cars, you would not believe how much people will pay you to spend your nights buidling custom enclosers out of mdf and fiberglass and stipping out carpeting to install it.

The reason for the removal was so I could apply a sound deading material, for the big jobs I used a spray on and the tar and adheasives would crack the finished product.

[gran racing]

Is it just me, or is removal of the interior one of the most annoying task with building a racecar?

Try looking at it this way. Removing weight is one of the few items that you do to a racecar that costs nothing (or at least very little). To make it a little more fun, weigh an empty garbage barrel then weigh some of the stuff you take out of the car including the tar. Pretty interesting!

[charrbq]

No kidding! I was amazed at the weight of the junk!

[JamesB]

I didnt build my car, but the person who did spend many hours scraping the car and the indercoat. He actually got the car down near min weight for his size. Needless to say he was heavier then me by a bit and at my school I found the car 100lbs under min weight, so Feb I get to play with lead.

[JimLill]

Dry Ice is a buy and use type thing, hard to store. An alternative is to get a tank of CO2. It must be a "Dip Tube" tank which stores and delivers the CO2 as a liquid. It will change from liquid to gas and/or sublime to dry ice as it exits the delivery orifice. In any event, it will be as cold as dry-ice. It is a standard way they cool down R&D temp chambers in labs.

http://www.airgas.com/browse/product.aspx?...19&WT.svl=69519 (http://www.airgas.com/browse/product.aspx?Msg=RecID&recIds=69519&WT.svl=69519)

get a cheap one of these....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...9&category=1267 (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7574936539&category=1267)

cannibalize it to make something more like a fire extinguiser, and freeze away

Use it when you need it......

[Jiveslug]

I think Ill go with standard dry ice for now. Anyone know where you can get some (never had to use it before)? I live in Los Angeles, so, unfortunately, its not NEAR cold enough to get the tar to the point where I can chisel it out. Heh.

[MMiskoe]

Get a cheap air chisle too, they can be had for less than $20 and they make any job like that go much faster. They're also handy for demolishing old exhaust parts.

Wire brush on your 4" grinder will get rid of the stuff on the underside of the car so you can repaint w/ something brighter & shinier (makes it easier to work under there).

[charrbq]

I'd be afraid of the air chisel. My luck, I'd cut a section out of the floor pan! I've used a grinder on the underside with bad luck. The stuff is really tar-like, and when I used the grinder, it heated up and turned the stuff to goo.

[zracre]

I get my dry ice at a bait and tackle store...i guess it has marine applications...or try asking around any medical supply store or marina...

[joeg]

The best stuff for this job is liquid Nitrogen--NOT NECESSARILY EASY TO HANDLE, BUT SUPER COLD AND SUPER-EFFECTIVE!

Applied with a wand at the end of a hose that can withstand the stuff.

Spray and tap--shatters the junk.

[Jiveslug]

How much dry ice is needed for this kind of job? Im looking at doing it this weekend. I have a place locally that sells it in 10lb chunks the size of a phone book. How many would I need? Its a Corolla, so its not a huge car.... Thanks!

[ITANorm]

I did the MR2 with about 6#, and had some left over. 10# should probably be about right for the Corolla. The biggest PITA for me was getting the sound-deadening stuff off the rear firewall (semi-vertical surface). My solution was to hang chunks of dry ice in "onion bags" on it and let it rest there for about 10 minutes. It still didn't do as well as on the floor. (FWIW - there's 16# of that crap in the passenger compartment of an MR2 - verified, independently, by 3 different anal-retentive racers. :)

[Marcus Miller]

Norm must be effetive!

We used 30 lbs on my ITA/7.
Some of that we broke up into pebbles and used over the tranny hump, for example. That didn't do the entire car. We used sweat equity for the rest... Make sure to use a a wood chisel to help persuade it, not a metal/concrete chisel...
Hope your build is going well! feel freee to email if you need help. Been there, done that...
Marcus :023:

[Knestis]

I resisted even looking at this thread, but I know that it's 22* in the shop this morning and won't be any warmer for some time...

We are doing the ENTIRE Golf - bottom included - so I've become pretty familiar with the various types/quantities of stuff that they put in. Most of the sheet tar stuff on the inside floor and firewall popped out a quarter-sized piece at a time by dinging the edge with an old screwdriver and hammer. I don't like chisels because theys scar up the sheetmetal. Some pieces - for whatever reason - were more reluctant so we applied a heat gun to the BACK side of the sheetmetal, just enough to break it's grip, and stripped it off with a plastic putty knife.

Goof-off takes the tar residue off really well, with the proper gloves and a 3M pad. Wipe off the juice/tar snot with lots of paper towels and work to all-the-way clean.

The SnapOn Crud Thug that we borrowed from Jon Bonforte's shop does a GREAT job on the urethane stuff that VW uses in the fenders, engine compartment, and bottom but is less good on the tar.

The WORST was the sheets of tar-like stuff that were stuck to the firewall with adhesive and (even worse worst) the felt crap that's glued into the ceiling. The adhesive they used there seems to be a urethane and is solvent-proof.

K

[JamesB]

Kirk you make me so glad that the previous owner when through all the pain to remove this material. He did one interesting thing though, he removed all the major areas but left the stuff in the rust prone areas under the wheel wells and above the fuel tank. Even then I am going today to buy 100lbs of used weights so I can add ballast, I guess I am a little too thin and need to add some weight.

[Knestis]

The really ironic thing about our situation is that the rust we are having to repair developed UNDER the goo, between layers of floor and chassis where they overlapped. It might be due to a couple of whacks that the rocker took, or perhaps from a leak into the interior. We couldn't even see the holes until we got to poking at the urethane and tar.

K

[JamesB]

This car had some good rust repair in the same area your car is. There is a little bit more on the outside of the car, but budget means that wont be looked at till next year.

[backformore]

Take a look at the Bimmerworld website. They have an ongoing article about building a budget track car and in that article they address removing this stuff. In addition to the dry ice they provide a "recipe" for the concoction(sp?) that they use as well. Seems like it is 50% kerosene and 50% something else.

[tom_sprecher]

I know this is an old thread but I am finishing up stripping the interior and decided to share my observations.

1. Using dry ice and a hammer or scraper is not what it is cracked up to be (pun intended). Possibly due to the ambient temp but the amount of time for the tar to get cold in one spot was about equal to the time to remove the rest of the area with an air chisel. Grind the corners of the chisel so it does not dig into the sheet metal.

2. Mineral spirits and soaked shop towels to hold it in place desolves the small stuff that's left of the tar in about 2-3 beers. Use a 3M pad while everything is wet to remove the stubborn spots.

3. The sound deadening in 1st gen RX-7 weights 17# not including the small bits that was vacuumed up.

The undercoating is next. I'll try the wire wheel, the a #M wheel then ???

[Speed Raycer]

I just found a tool that works even better than the 3M wheels. It's available at home Depot. I'll see if I can find a pic of it, but it has 3 or 4 sets of 30 or so straight wires arianged radially. Works awsome for seam sealer and other crud.

[tom_sprecher]

I know what you are refering to and have seem them in Home Depot but could not find them on the 'net w/o looking through all the other "wire wheel" results. I'll try on if you say it works. Anything to speed things along. Thanks.

[Speed Raycer]

I shouldn't have said that they work BETTER than the 3M wheels because the 3M wheels rock. They do work better on the chunky stuff that the 3M wheels just heat up and smear, for anywhere therre's lots of metal edges that tear up the 3M wheels, and seam sealer in crevises.

[joeg]

What really works well is a dewar flask/tank of liquid Nitrogen and a wand to spray it with.

You would need to fabricate the wand and the deposit on the dewar flask is mucho $$$. This is also a somewhat dangerous operation (you can suffocate or suffer burns), but it works well.

Personally, I have done the operation with Aircraft stripper--lot's of it--and elbow grease, instead.

Cheers.

[orlando_wrx]

The SnapOn Crud Thug that we borrowed from Jon Bonforte's shop does a GREAT job on the urethane stuff that VW uses in the fenders, engine compartment, and bottom but is less good on the tar.

[/b]

Crud thug rocks! it's a bit of an expensive proposition if youre only building your own car, but if you can find one to borrow it's a god-send. What I noticed on my MR2 is that the tar inside was so old just lightly tapping with a claw hammer would crack it apart, then the little bits left easily came off with a heat gun combined with the crud thug. The undercoating on the MR2 is VERY thick, and the crud thug is a MUST for this, so depending on the thickness of your undercoating some people may want to bite the bullet and get one.

[e36its]

The SnapOn Crud Thug that we borrowed from Jon Bonforte's shop does a GREAT job on the urethane stuff that VW uses in the fenders, engine compartment, and bottom but is less good on the tar.[/b]
Curiousity drove me to look up the Snap-On Crud Thing (http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp?item_ID=76499&group_ID=13078). What makes this thing such a godsend? It appears to be visually similar to a common angle grinder for which a variety of wire wheel styles are available.

tom

[orlando_wrx]

What make it different is rather than a circular contact patch where your wire wheel would just rub in circles on the target material, the crud thug rotates 90 degrees to the target material; grabbing the "crud" and pulling it away. The "thug"s are available in varying "grits" for rough removal and fine finishing. They are like tiny wire fingers clawing at your target. The "fingers" are quite stronger than a typical wire wheel, but are mounted on a rubber ring to allow just a tad bit of flex if you put a little too much pressure on your work. Ask around if someone has one you could borrow, and give it a try. I guess it's one of those things you can't quite appreciate until you've used it. With a wire wheel on a angle grinder I spent about 7-8 hours on one wheel well, with the crud thug I finished the other 3 in about 6 (times are a bit much because i was taking frequent drink and cigarette breaks, but are an accurate relation to each other). Word of warning: the air tool runs $350+ and a box of 5 or 6 wheels is somewhere around $60.

[tom_sprecher]

I think the secret to the Crud Thug is the wheel. It is similar to what Scott described and I have seen at Home Depot. It is a wheel/drum with 3-4 rows of 30-40 steel wire rods that have one end attached to the wheel by passing a pin through the loop end of the wire rod like on an oxy-acetylene torch orifice cleaner.

I have tried on and off for the past 2 days to find a link to one but have failed/given up due to too many search results for wire + wheel + stripping + clean + whatever. I might have to do it the old fashioned way and get up off my a$$ and drive to the store.

Scotty, do you have a 3M part # of the wheels you have found work best? I got a couple of 3M-like wheels that I was not too impressed with.

[Speed Raycer]

I don't have the #'s off the top of my head... but they've got to be the 3M's or the Nortons. The Harbor Freight/Cummins Tools ones are less than stellar and hit or miss.

I like the 4"x1/2" for areas that I need some flex (floorpan creases) and the 4x1" to really get to work on large areas. Buy some of the smaller (1.5"?) ones too for those tight areas and corners.

Remember to make sure the Blackwheel is turning across the edge of the material, not turning into it. Grabbing an edge will make short work of the blackwheels.

The Crud Thugs attachment is almost exactly like the piece at Home Depot... in fact, that's what caught my eye about it.

Norton RapidStrip Wire Brush
http://www.nortonconsumer.com/Media/Images/S0000000000000001032/Discs-Rapid%20Strip%20Wire%20Brush%202004%20web.jpghttp://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/woeimages/00003291.jpg

[lateapex911]

It looks like the wire tips are bent forward, and in three blocks, so only 66% of the circle is used.
Too bad the replacement wire wheels look like they will only fir what appears to ne a proprietary 2" or so arbor that fits the Snap on machine. Because otherwise, it looks like it's just a right angle grinder with a fancy (or specific use) wire wheel.

Anyone in the NE want to rent or sell me theirs used?