I just bought a 50lb bag of blasting sand (not play sand) for like $10, and Im thinking about starting on blasting the engine bay since the motor is already out. Has anyone every had any problems with blasting leaving too dull of a finish to paint? Im painting it the same blue that the car will eventually be painted. We're just roll it out behind the shop, tape/plastic off the rest of the car and go to town under the hood. But I was curious if there were any pointers I should be aware of for best results. Thanks!!! EDIT: I got a pressurized pot and 60gal compressor, so air flow wise Im set

I just did that to my RS and it took about 150 lbs. with a cheap sandblaster and my inexperience .Other than that it is hard to get all the sand out before paint.I ended up with a little sand in the paint around the strut support , no big deal .Other than that it looks real good and is holding up well for the past 6 months . By the way my engine bay was completely empty , dont know if I would try it with all the wiring and stuff in there , that would make it very hard to clean out .

Good luck Mike

i know with the sandblasting equipment at my work moisture is a big problem. you may want to get one of those inline moisture trap/ seperator.

whatever you do or use , wear a good filter/mask . silica sand in the lungs can/will kill . a cheap paper mask or wet banbana will not do . a friend of mind did a major sandblast on an old/restore military vechicle . his son is now finishing it up . his dad is not around to see it . the dust can be a killer . it was for my friend .

Pics please! When you get them and any tips. Thanks

A good way to go, but expect to have sand creeping out of random places for about 6 months... and even then every once in a while you will see some sand creep out(even worse if you sand blast the entire car ). But its quicker/easier to do than wire brushing/sanding. No problems with the paint being shiney though.

dang, went to school and came back to all these posts!! Thanks alot guys, I go have a good water seperator/filter (DeVilbiss, i think thats how u spell it). The only wiring I have left in the car is for the blower motor and front lights, which is already pulled out of the way (I went carb'd so I yanked basically everything out. And someone mentioned something about the silica sand; The blasting sand I got says either low or no silica, so I whould be good. Im gonna waer my respirator either way though, Ive had MANY people warn me about silicosis. Plus I imagine sand is gonna create a decent size dust cloud.

I thought about blasting the entire car eventually, but Ive heard of people warping panels doing so. I would like to seal off part of the shop and use a recyclable media (mainly aluminum oxide), but the amount I would need would be soooo much, either that or stop and clean up every 15 minutes. I would much rather roll the chassis outside and blast it with the cheap sand, but there again there's the risk of warping panels.

One more question before I forget, did yall use any type of special primer/paint for under the hood? Hi temp single stage or anything of that nature? or would I just go about painting it just as I would a fender?

so if I stayed back about a foot or so, would that help in heat reduction or not do a thing?

You could just sandblast the floor, underneath and the engine bay... and just leave the body panels alone, and strip them with paint stripper or something, or try skimming over it multiple times til its stripped down, so it would get hot. We used thin, dusty sand. Didn't work that well, but it was free.

I thought about that, but I dont have a lift, just some jackstands. Not sure how hard/safe it would be to sandblast upside down laying on the ground.

Sand blasting actually leaves a very paint friendly finish on the metal. As long as the metal is properly primed, sanded, and then painted you can get excellent gloss.

For these cars it is a good idea to sand blast along the firewall seam. The putty along the top side of the seam hardens and cracks. When it does the seam starts rusting. Take out the screens on the cowl and look inside to see if you spot any signs of rust or cracked putty. Any of this should be taken care of before painting the engine bay.

Body panels can be blasted with sand as well. The real trick here is to find a balance of just enough power to pull the paint off the panel. Also try to come at the panel at an angle. Regularly put your hand on the panel to check the metal's temperature. Warping will most likely be caused by heat in the panel. I haven't had problems with warping when blasting thin body panels back to bare steel. I could see how someone could go crazy on a thin panel and heat it to the point the metal gets a wave.

Yeah, it wouldn't be too fun sandblasting upside down.

I don't know how feasible this would be for you or if you would want to go through the trouble, but I thought I'd share what we did. We rigged up a red-neck rotisserie. If everything is stripped off, you could bolt 2 long boards to the frame rails, one on the front and the other on rear. Then cut a hole on one end of each of the boards. And use a come-along attached to the boards and the ceiling or some sort of frame. It was a little slow(had to put it one its side several times till we finished) but it worked good for sandblasting, spraying the primer and installing the SFCs. I added a picture to show how it was done(don't mind the clutter, lol).

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

wow, thats a pretty interesting technique. I dont know if we've got that kind of room to manuver around in. And being a fellow red-necker, I can definitely appreciate that setup, but that looks dangerous even to me!! It seems that a drafty window could blow that car down, but are the 4x4s supported?

Haha, nah it was very stable. It shook when hammering and stuff but it wouldnt fall over. You could easily screw on braces though. We had the come-along strapped to a rafter on the roof so it could only tip so far before the rope tensioned up.

I wouldnt want to leave it sitting there for long periods of time though. I dont know how easily the body could warp, if that would even be possible.