Some kind of tar on floor pan/chassis...

[THEBURG]

Originally Posted by fastdub

when i had to remove the tar board from my floorpan, i found out, after trying everything else, that the only way to really get it off is to cut it/chip it off then go over the whole lot with paint stripper and slowly wipe it away

it takes ages

so dont think its a five minute job

Yep, that's what we did with a bug we are fixing up for a raffle. We used screw drivers and a rather dull chisel. I still have the blister on the palm of my hand 3 weeks later! Try tapping on the stuff with a dull chisel, it breaks it loose from the metal, making it easier to remove. Good luck!

Henry

[zeroaxe]

Well honestly, the only luck I am having at the moment is with the electric heat gun and a scraper. It took me an hour and half to do 1/4 of the floor pan!!!! Guess the rest is going to be MUCH fun! And it seems that my suspicions were right. My boss didnt get back to me with a price to sandblast the chassis, because he knew what was painted onto it. Now that I am talking about getting this crap off, he seems more willing to get me a price on the sandblasting! Hmmmm..... Why not just tell me in the first place that I need to remove the stuff first? That is how misunderstandings/miscommunications cause unnesesary problems....

[MikeVW]

If an electric headgun works would a propane or acetylene torch work better?

Mike

[zeroaxe]

Hi Mike,

Not really, but I see your logic! The problem seems to be that when I heat it too much, it kinda melts(which is normal I think ) and you scrape it, it then smears into a very fine film or tar. You take the majority off, but there is that little bit that stays behind. If I warm it up just enough, I can scrape it quite clean. I recon that is the reason why it took me that long to do so little.

The other reason is I dont have a Oxy set-up If I had, I would probably cut the floor out, lol.

Hopefully today I can get some more done.

[Bullyboy]

I found it works best if you heat the scraper, not the tar.
Then it comes off in bigger sections because you are slicing it off.
If you heat the tar it just turns into mush and globs up.
This works good to get tarboards off in one piece if you have a long scraper.
Then you just have to clean up with laquer thinner, acetone, varsol, etc.

[zeroaxe]

Good tip! :agree: I will give that a shot. I hope to have some time tomorrow afternoon to work on it a bit more. Either that, or I continue grinding some weight off of my Type IV's conrods

[SoCalGL]

I just did this two weeks ago.. it took me and my friend, with two chisel and 8 hours of classic rock to get it off.... and i'm still not done now its just me with a heat gun and a metal brush working away at the left overs hopefully by tomm she'll be ready for aircraft stripper... all I can say is go at it till you can't anymore.. then do it tomm...