... and by that I don't mean stip the paint on the body and shoot a fresh coat of primer/bc/cc. I mean full down to the metal everywhere (or almost everywhere).

I just recently started working on my car and I have my own share of rust to deal with, but I've seen people start with things which look way worse than my car and actually complete a project, so I want to look at it as also a learning experience.

I started with the wheel wells and the underbody. Plan is to take all of it down to bare metal or close to it and recoat with some good stuff. Given that dipping is out of the question, what is the best way to approach something like this? I just finished scrapping all the undercoating off and now I am looking at all the angle, nooks and holes half of which I can't really get to. Also took a look inside the frame itself and although it appears solid, a lot of coating in there started to peel, there is a ton of dust and sand and some surface rust in few places.

I do have a sandblaster which I am planning to break open once I clean all the undercoating crap off the floor.

So ideas or thoughts anyone?

 

Be careful with the sandblaster you could warp the metal. Dont stay in one place too long.

 

I won't be doing body panel sheet metal with sandblaster. 60-80 6" DA does incredibly fast job with that (plus die grinder with 2" sanding disks for tight spaces). And I would hope all the stuff underneath the car is thick enough to not worry about warping. Pretty sure there is enough bends and welds down there to keep things straight.

Another thing I am not sure about is how much sand to expect? Never blasted outside a blasting cabinet. Should I mask/tape some holes to keep sand out?

 

That stuff will go everwhere and get in everything. Tape it off.
I do all my stuf outside no mess to clean.

 

You will end up with sand everywhere, in the shop and in the car. There will be sand in places you didn't know. You'll find sand for years to come.


Why is dipping out of the question?

 

Over the winter I built a temporary paint booth around the car (doesn't exactly have a door). And the car is down the frame sitting on 6 jack stands (no wheels, no suspension). Really don't want to figure out how it can be moved out of the garage and how it can be moved in general.

One of the reasons for doing booth now is so I could sand blast and not worry about sand getting into the rest of the garage. As far as stuff inside (rest of the car + removed pieces) I am hoping I can put plastic around everything and tape it all up

 

You better do a dang good job of taping that plastic. I sand blasted almost my whole car and oh my was there a ton of sand everywhere. There was even sand in the vents which we completely taped off. I really hope you have a mask to wear too...

 

actually I am planning on test driving my fresh air system. and the car has no vents either

 

I bought a 67 Chevelle and a few weeks later a sand blaster. I spent maybe 20 minutes in the trunk with the sand blaster. About a month after I sold the Chevelle....after I exposed all the evil of course.

 

Hmmm, check out my cardomain site. I pretty much did all that stuff, blasted, coated and rebuilt. I am not done yet, but I have tons of pics in there and can probably help.

Check it out

 

click the link in my sig. the blue car is a complete resto, stripped down to the unibody, blasted, and sprayed, undercoated, etc.

 

I went all the way down with mine, sanding down to the bare metal. Took off all fenders, doors, latches, jambs, hatch, hood, GFX, mirrors, bumpers. Everything that was bolted together. It took about 3 months start to finish.

I just used a DA sander with 80 grit to get the paint and clear off down to the bare metal. It did take a while to get the nooks and crannies with this method. And I wish I had a bigger compressor for this - mine is "only" a 33gallon 2hp/6hp craftsman single stage. If I did it again I'd borrow my buddies 2 stage 220V unit.

If you are taking the pieces off anyway it isn't that bad using a sander. It's probably not worth the effort mounting each piece and hitting it with a sand blaster. Dipping might be an idea though...

As far as undercoating, I wire brushed it 1st and then hit it with some rust converter. Then put some undercoating on. The goal was just to stop the rust, didn't have to look pretty.

 

thanks for the reply guys. I will definitely check out cardomain sites tomorrow when taking a break from the garage. I spent few hours thursday night blasting more stuff and will be going back for most of tomorrow.

I only want to use sandblaster for underbody and such. Panels themselves, just sand down with a DA. On the underbody I will probably start tomorrow with angle grinder and knotted wire wheel and then blast away whatever that leaves. So we'll see how that goes.

.. but right now I seriously need to get sleep. After garage on thursday I only had 3 hours.