Topic: Taking it off and stripping her down

[koski19]

I acquired a new 66 Mustang project last week. In a week or so I'll be stripping the car down to it's frame and sub assemblies. My question here is what to use to chemically take off 48 years of paint, road grime and seam sealers? I talked with the local hot rod shop and they use aircraft stripper and steel wool. I was informed there wasn't a dipping facility in town. Will the aircraft stripper take the road grim and seam sealer off as well as the paint? What about rust?  My last project I used sand paper and a grinder. That was way too labor intensive. Need input here if you stripped to bare metal taking off the seam sealers road grime and rust..Thanks

Jeff
ASE

[CharlesTurner]

Would recommend to do a good cleaning and see how things look.  If you strip all the sealers/sound deadening material off the car, this is going to be very expensive to replace and also difficult to achieve an exact copy of how it was done originally.

[J_Speegle]

Would recommend to do a good cleaning and see how things look.  If you strip all the sealers/sound deadening material off the car, this is going to be very expensive to replace and also difficult to achieve an exact copy of how it was done originally.

+1

I see this issue every few weeks in shops. First they strip the body down clean than  turn around and ask what products to use, how to apply it, where does it go...... trying to reproduce what the car had the week before. Clean as much as you need to make sure you discover any rust or old repairs as well as cleaning but save as much as you can.

Also the slow sometimes pain in the *** lets you discover remaining marks and details that you might over look if you were to blast or send it out.

Not sure where your located and what is available.  I use to go to the local coin (pressure wand) car self wash and with some cleaner send $10 or so cleaning the surfaces and blasting off anything that was loose (spiders, hornet nest, crud...) Then take some pictures. This often took place on the trip home if on  a trailer as a first step

[koski19]

+1

I see this issue every few weeks in shops. First they strip the body down clean than  turn around and ask what products to use, how to apply it, where does it go...... trying to reproduce what the car had the week before. Clean as much as you need to make sure you discover any rust or old repairs as well as cleaning but save as much as you can.

Also the slow sometimes pain in the *** lets you discover remaining marks and details that you might over look if you were to blast or send it out.

Not sure where your located and what is available.  I use to go to the local coin (pressure wand) car self wash and with some cleaner send $10 or so cleaning the surfaces and blasting off anything that was loose (spiders, hornet nest, crud...) Then take some pictures. This often took place on the trip home if on  a trailer as a first step

hey Jeff...Thanks for your reply....You saw my car sitting on the trailer the other day on this site. I live in Nevada and the humidity is very low most of the year. I haven't done anything to the car since I brought it home. The Mustang sits in the yard with a car cover on it from Virginia Mustangs. That's a great idea to take the car to a car wash. I have one about a mile away. Never thought of using the car wash. That would take most of the road grime off, loose rust etc. The engine and transmission is out. The interior is out and the door panels are off...........Jeff

[DM_1964]

My question here is what to use to chemically take off 48 years of paint, road grime and seam sealers?

Hi Jeff,
I'm working through this stage atm, I concentrated on the sound deadener first, used a heat gun and scraper to get that off, scraper works well for the seam sealer too,  as well as a wire brush to get right in between the joins. Now I'm in the midst of stripping the paint off, it's labour intensive (mine's had color sprayed over the original paint) but I'm going to save $3000 from dodging the media blasting, to date I've used about $150 worth of paint stripper (so far so good)... I just keep applying it, I've found it's better to concentrate on small areas at a time, rather than large sections or else you end up with patchs of paint that are still clinging on for dear life... after I've finished pressure clean off the paint stripper and dry with compressed air as well as leave it out in the sun, I'm not applying anything after it as advised by my body repairer, as he'll have it in his shop soon a few weeks before he carries out the panel work before eventually applying primer.
Some before and after shots so far...

[koski19]

Hi Jeff,
I'm working through this stage atm, I concentrated on the sound deadener first, used a heat gun and scraper to get that off, scraper works well for the seam sealer too,  as well as a wire brush to get right in between the joins. Now I'm in the midst of stripping the paint off, it's labour intensive (mine's had color sprayed over the original paint) but I'm going to save $3000 from dodging the media blasting, to date I've used about $150 worth of paint stripper (so far so good)... I just keep applying it, I've found it's better to concentrate on small areas at a time, rather than large sections or else you end up with patchs of paint that are still clinging on for dear life... after I've finished pressure clean off the paint stripper and dry with compressed air as well as leave it out in the sun, I'm not applying anything after it as advised by my body repairer, as he'll have it in his shop soon a few weeks before he carries out the panel work before eventually applying primer.
Some before and after shots so far...

Morning Dom,

That looks great. Did you use aircraft stripper? I'm thinking of buying a pressure washer at Home Depot. I have the air compressor for drying. So, you leave the body unpainted and let your bodyman do the primer work? Once I start, I think it will be close to 30 days before the body shop gets the Mustang. I live in Nevada and it's pretty dry here. I'm just concerned about flash rust starting. There are several panels that need replacing first. Off the bat it will be the floor pan and then the cowling repair. The body cancer was caused by the leaking cowling. Don't know for sure until I can crawl under the dash and look. From the top side the cowling looks good. Taking off the top of the cowling will tell for sure. I have yet to find other rusted areas. Thanks for the photos.

jeff

[DM_1964]

Did you use aircraft stripper? I'm thinking of buying a pressure washer at Home Depot. I have the air compressor for drying. So, you leave the body unpainted and let your bodyman do the primer work?

Morning Jeff,
The paint stripper I'm using is just a generic brand here in Australia, but I assume that will the aircraft stripper would do the job for you, if it's cheap enough to buy I'd try it on an area that not seen just to see how it goes, I initially bought a 1/4 gallon container but now buying 1 gallon. I think you'll be alright though, make sure you have a good pair of gloves and goggles, long sleeves will help as well (it really stings when it contacts your skin). Would definitely recommend the pressure washer.
I'm close to sending the shell to the body shop and it's humid enough here that only minimal flash rust had started in some areas, however, there's a product called DeOx (basically prevents rust and shines up the bare metal - pic attached, I used it after I first started stripping on the engine bay, it's starting to dull the metal now but no surface rust, haven't used it since so I'll wait til the bodyman applies it as I think it's best used prior to primer.
My cowling is good so I won't be removing it but really want to get inside to get rid of the other layers of pain that have been applied.
All the best with it, keep us posted...

[CharlesTurner]

You missed a j-clip at the front of the inner fender, lol!   

[koski19]

Morning Jeff,
The paint stripper I'm using is just a generic brand here in Australia, but I assume that will the aircraft stripper would do the job for you, if it's cheap enough to buy I'd try it on an area that not seen just to see how it goes, I initially bought a 1/4 gallon container but now buying 1 gallon. I think you'll be alright though, make sure you have a good pair of gloves and goggles, long sleeves will help as well (it really stings when it contacts your skin). Would definitely recommend the pressure washer.
I'm close to sending the shell to the body shop and it's humid enough here that only minimal flash rust had started in some areas, however, there's a product called DeOx (basically prevents rust and shines up the bare metal - pic attached, I used it after I first started stripping on the engine bay, it's starting to dull the metal now but no surface rust, haven't used it since so I'll wait til the bodyman applies it as I think it's best used prior to primer.
My cowling is good so I won't be removing it but really want to get inside to get rid of the other layers of pain that have been applied.
All the best with it, keep us posted...

I think the aircraft stripper is about $30.00-$70.00 a gallon depending on whose brand is bought. I'll search for Deox.  My last 66 Mustang that was in a state of restoration I sold to a gent from Australia back in 2007. He was in Spokane, WA saw my ad made a call and the car headed to Australia.

Jeff

[DM_1964]

You missed a j-clip at the front of the inner fender, lol!   

You have an eagle's eyes Charles! had a fender mocked up prior to check gaps between fender door and qtr, this one I couldn't remove by hand, needed a screwdriver to pry it off, it's not there anymore

[DM_1964]

My last 66 Mustang that was in a state of restoration I sold to a gent from Australia back in 2007. He was in Spokane, WA saw my ad made a call and the car headed to Australia.

Yeah us Aussie's don't mess around, especially when it comes to Mustangs and a good exchange rate

[koski19]

Haven't yet rolled the mustang into the shop. On Monday, I'm going to start with stripping the hood. It's off the car and I'm ready to start. I think I may roll the car in on Friday and get started with the rest of the disassembly. I have the air compressor, mig welder and power washer (Home Depot) ready to go.
I'll be posting photos as I move on the car....

Jeff

[koski19]

Update for May 6th....Today I decided to strip down the hood since it was already off the car. Here are the before and after photos. I used Rustoleum Aircraft paint remover, plastic scrapers, paper towels and steel wool and it worked pretty good. I then rinsed with water and dried with air from the compressor.  The paint peeled right off and so did the primer. Didn't take long for the stripper to work. There was one area that had bondo and once removed, has a small dent that crosses the center of the hood. There is also about a dime size hold showing some pitting starting.  Now to the underside.
Here the blue and the black paint was way to easy to remove. Looked like there was one coat of paint and one coat of primer. Then there is this dark gray material that doesn't come off with the stripper? Another coat of primer? I may need to sand it. The underside looks good with no repairs needed. The paint came off here very easy and mostly with using steel wool. While doing this hood I got the feeling that this might be a aftermarket hood. There was nothing to identify it as a ford part. Did Ford use a part number/Mfg number on the hood? I did not find one. Where would it be located? Other than the topside bondo work and filling the pitting, I'm pretty happy with the out come.

Jeff

[DM_1964]

There was nothing to identify it as a ford part. Did Ford use a part number/Mfg number on the hood? I did not find one. Where would it be located?

Jeff, good work, yours sounded a lot easier to remove than mine, I had multiple coats but I got there.
I didn't find a part number but original panels should have a date stamp, I found 2 underneath the hood, drivers side bottom closest to cowling, and passenger side mid half way up closest to fender.

[koski19]

Thanks for the info Dom.....I'll look again for the date stamp. If you look at the photos of the hood top. How would I build up that ridge that runs down the center of the hood? I have a dent puller to pull out as much as possible the small dents but building up the ridge would be more challenging. What is that dark grey coating on the top? Primer? The aircraft stripper doesn't seem to be able to loosen it.  I'm thinking 100/120 grit to strip the rest off. 80 grit would leave too many deep scratches that would then need to be filled. How's your project coming along?

Jeff