Underseal advice please.

[Dan stag]

Although the underneath of my old girt looks ok the underseal is looking tatty. Is it possible to remove the stuff, if so have you any tips on the best way to remove it. Thanks

[Another Peter]

It is a really, really horrible job.

Try and pick a warm day, or get some heat into your garage to build up the ambient temperature.

Section by section, use a heat gun (or your wife's hairdryer ) to warm up the underseal and use a scraper.

It takes ages, it's boring and you'll get filthy.

Worthwhile doing though as sometimes rust develops under the underseal.

I'd recommend using clear waxoyl afterwards rather than reapplying more underseal, as at least you can see through it and hopefully you won't have to scrape the underseal off again in another 5 years.

Regards

Peter

[jbuckl]

Industrial Steam cleaner set to the max cut through my cars old underseal.

Some of it was already softened by atf leaks though!

It took 1 day, then 1.5 days of drying with a 108kg cylinder of propane on a space heater. (Just to be sure)

The only wet left was in the rear suspension mounts.

Some areas had no paint left.

Re-primed those with red chassis paint.

Re-undersealed with 3m black gun spray on.

[Dan stag]

Thanks for the quick replies. Will it be bare metal underneath or a painted surface Im pretty sure its original under there! Although the previous owner has undersealed everything he could reach including the rear brake adjusters, thats another story

[Another Peter]

Although the previous owner has undersealed everything he could reach including the rear brake adjusters, thats another story

That's the main problem with it - it covers a multitude of sins/problems. I don't like the stuff at all.

You should find painted metal (or rust) underneath.

Regards

Peter

[martin]

Hi Dan, I almost agree completely with Peter, the only change I'd make, is to use black underbody wax, it's a lot tougher than clear, and self heals to a certain extent. It'll still need inspection and periodic topping up. The problem with bitumen underseal was that people thought it was permanent and it plainly isn't, evil horrible stuff, it stays stable enough to look like a solid surface. Beneath the stuff you should find something that looks like red oxide primer, body colour was never applied at the factory. Good luck Martin.

[Dan stag]

Thanks for the advice. It looks like Its going to be a long job and i may have my work cut out, maybe best left until next winter as I'm going to strip her bottom then.

[alan_thomas]

Just finished doing mine and ,yes its a swine of a job. It was well worth it because although 95% of the underbody area was perfectly clean metal with the lightest of paint coats the remaining 5% had let moisture in and had started to rust and small repairs were required to a couple of spots on the rear inner archs, the rear side seat belt mounts, a corner of the boot floor and one front outrigger/ floorpan.

I didn't use heat, I did mine when it was very cold and it came off in flakes using an old chisel and plenty of muscle. The last residual bits were removed with Paraffin.

Last weekend applied white stonechip with a schutz gun, looks good (white car) and should last the car out. - Alan

[Dan stag]

Good advice thanks Alan. Cold or hot removal it sounds a real pain. I suppose it depends on which product the previous owner used.

[martin]

Good advice thanks Alan. Cold or hot removal it sounds a real pain. I suppose it depends on which product the previous owner used.

Thin road tar by the sound of it ! Martin.

[Staghound]

Yes,I have to agree with the above,my car had been done with the black stuff several times,upto 6mm thick.....after several weeks of evenings tap,tap,tap,tap my neighbour got the 'ump and told me so.....some people have no sense of what is important!

Andrew.

[new to this]

Yes,I have to agree with the above,my car had been done with the black stuff several times,upto 6mm thick.....after several weeks of evenings tap,tap,tap,tap my neighbour got the 'ump and told me so.....some people have no sense of what is important!

Andrew.

staghound

i removed my underseal with a wire brush on angle grinder works really well

dave