Homemade rotisserie and $#%#% undercoating

[48builder]

I was looking for a way to flip the bodu of my '48, and you guys advised against rolling it on its side. So, after seeing the article in Rodder's Digest about the use of engine stands for flipping a frame, I decided to try it for the body.

I took an old stand I had that I didn't really like and  midified it. We extended the legs to make it wider. Then we made a new upright that was taller and did not have the 5 degree upeard angle. Then we fabricated a couple heavy duty pieces to bolt to the inside of the body.

I made a piece of angle iron ro bolt across the firewall using existing holes. Then I used my engine hoist to pick it up.

It works great. I am able to flip it with no help.

No here's the cause my my swearing. I had stripped some of the old undercoating from the wheel wells using a air needle scaler. Worked great. However, on the underside, it will not touch it. So I tried burning it off. Works, but leaves a messy residue. Now I am trying to spray it with oven cleaner and let it sit for a while. At the rate I am going it will take days to strip it.

Any sugeestion?

Walt

[Crosley.In.AZ]

some type of media blasting will work.

the legs on the engine stand should be out past the width of the body for maximum stability.

[58Apache]

You MAY have one already if your wife likes to re-decorate as much as mine, but I used a wallpaper steamer to loosen the grit and old undercoating on my car.

I still had to work to scrape it off, but it loosened to make it possible.

                                    Steve

[dragrcr50]

i use a rigid scraper ie; snap on and a hammer like a chisel works pretty good just takes some time...............we have two rotissieies and use them on about every job ..sure  makes life easier......good luck

[48builder]

I'll try the scraper and hammer. Don't have a wallpaper steamer, but I doubt that would touch this stuff. I can't figure out why it is so different underneath the body. The wheel wells stripped clean with my needle scaler. So far, I found that using a scraper with a propane torch followed up ith a wire wheel does a nice job. Just messy and time-consuming.

Tony, the legs are just about as wide as the car. I figured that would be good, and so far I haven't had a problem.

[Bruce Dorsi]

Hi, Walt!

I think it was Mike Bishop who posted on the RRT, a few years ago, about using the dry-ice blasting process to remove undercoat.   .....I did some reading about the process, and it does sound like it works very well.

There are contractors who do dry-ice blasting with portable rigs, and you may find someone in the Syracuse area who does this, but I have no idea of the cost, or if they would even bother with such a "small" job like yours.  .....The process is often used to clean the grease build-up from fried-food establishments.

Along this line of thinking, can you induce a localized chilling to make the undercoat brittle so that it can be chipped off?  ....I'm wondering if a blast from a CO2 extinguisher could freeze a small area, so that it could be readily removed?  ....Do you have access to liquid CO2 or liquid nitrogen?    

Of course, you could leave the body outside during one of your sub-zero winters!      

Say, "Hello!" to Shawn for us!

[donsrods]

How about a heat gun and putty knife?  I bet if you heated a spot to soften the underside then scraped with the putty knife it would seperate from the metal.

Just a thought.


Don

[enjenjo]

I use an air powered  gasket scraper, mine is a snap on, but there are other brands. I dull the blade a bit to keep from cutting the metal.

It will work in warm weather, but it works better when the metal is cold.