[Rich-Allen]

I have this thick spray crap inside my rear fenders and I want to know if this was from the factory.

This stuff could be as thick as 1/2" in some places. I'm starting to think the clown who built this car sprayed this stuff to make it look factory.

It does look old but anything could be made to look old.

Rich

[Vintage 68]

I'm going to guess you have a Van Nuys/LA built car then ...

Yes, the factory did spray the rear fender wells and certain areas in the trans tunnel and front area of floor pan with undercoating/sealer/sound-deadeners during the body assembly right after the major paint process steps. These areas are part of the initial Fisher/GMAD body assembly process and I don't know of a published source of the information outlining this process - maybe JohnZ or someone can chime-in with some documantation.

The areas in the front wheel house to be sprayed during final assembly are outlined in the AIM (UPC 11-13, A4 in 1967 AIM) for each year - BUT, the actual areas sprayed by each plant varied quite a bit.
The Norwood built cars I've worked on seem to follow the AIM guidelines for the front wheel hose coating pretty close and also seem to have more sprayed material in the rear wells, the tunnel area and the front of the floor pan.
I have observed numerous cars built at Van Nuys and, the for most part, there was little if any material sprayed in the front wheel house areas.
The amount of material in the trans tunnel and on the front floor pan area also varied greatly. The Van Nuys car seem to have less material under the rear of the car - this may just be a true "good day/bad day" thingy.

I believe someone posted a pretty good diagram of the underside of their car showing where the coatings were as they stripped them. I thought I had saved a copy of the photo, but I can't find it - try a search of "undercoating' and see if the past thread comes up.

Hope this helps some.

[Rich-Allen]

Hi John, thanks for the reply,

You can only see a little portion of the rear fender in this photo but it does have some of this coating on it.

Further up the coating is thicker. The guy who blasted this stuff must have been stoned. I can see big thick runs where too much coating was applied.
I would estimate the thickness to be 1/2" at it's thickest point.
The front fenders do have a little coating but nothing like the rear.
The trans tunnel had nothing.

I want to remove this crap and check the condition of the metal beneath.
Any suggestion how to remove it? I tried to get a little piece off yesterday and it took a hammer and screw driver to chip a piece loose.

[Vintage 68]

Originally Posted by Rich-Allen

I want to remove this crap and check the condition of the metal beneath.
Any suggestion how to remove it?

The best way I know of is a 'heat-gun' and some scrapers
It takes some time, but it's a much cleaner way than trying to desolve the stuff with solvents - doing it this way once just left some nasty stains in my driveway
I use an industrial type heat gun and those toss-away plastic scrapers you can get at OSH/hardware stores for a 'buck' or so. The plastic scrapers don't hold up all that well, but they don't scrach the $hee-it out of the metal like the normal metal scrapers did either.
I then use a rag and most normal cleaner solvents to remove the final little bits of the coatings and clean the metal.

[Rich-Allen]

Thanks John, JimM also recommended using a heat gun. I just put one on will call at Graingers.

I should get some time later this week to start removing it.



Rich

[Vintage 68]

Originally Posted by Rich-Allen

... JimM also recommended using a heat gun.

I should get some time later this week to start removing it.

Rich

That JimM is a smart guy

Have fun - oh, wear old clothes

btw - I also use a Norton 'RapidSTRIP' (#04015) stripping wheel to remove small amounts left and clean the metal without damaging it. These wheels mount to you standard 5/8" grinder mandrel threads and don't need an adapter.

[Rocketrod]

Use Mr. Muscle oven cleaner and a pressure washer if possible. I personally found it much more effective than the heat gun method.

[Unreal]

I chipped mine out with a large dull screwdriver blade (removed the handle) and a hammer. The dull screwdriver did not scratch the steel, and the pieces came out as small chips rather than a hot goowie mess. Took a couple of hours per wheelwell, though