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 . 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.

[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

get a cheap one of these....

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...9&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