Found a winter project that I can do for A) no money and B) without using the wife's side of the garage.

I initially began to clear the crap away from around the light rust around the drain plug holes, and kind of kept on going. I remembered an old Sport Compact Car article where they shaved something like 150lbs out of a Civic for an inter-magazine contest, so I've been keeping my chippings. When I'm done I'll weigh them and post it.
All you need is to remove the entire interior, get a new sharp chisel, a good hammer, and some very cold weather. It shatters and cracks like hard nasty plastic, popping up in jagged chunks. The hardest part is on the drivetrain tunnel, where the exhaust heat has baked it past the point of crystallization, so it shatters and you only get a little with each blow.
Next step: grind out the rust and spray some primer over my 10,000 gouges in the metal.

 

another pic.

 

A 2 inch wide putty scraper works just as well without fear of punching through or divoting the floorboard... and yes, it is kinda surprising how much that stuff weighs...

--Danny

 

I heard crushed dry ice is the best way yo do this. And yes it weighs a ton.

 

it's actually a substance called Bituthane, not tar, and in many cases comes right off. I stripped the interior of my 280ZX in the summer time by simply grabbing a corner and peeling the stuff off like a child's sticker. In the cold weather it shatters and comes off fairly easy as well. The only downside to this is you might get a dull thrum from the floor at speed, as the large metal surfaces are now vibrating like a drumhead without the sound deadening.

 

crushed dry ice eh? please elaborate

 

I heard this from the road racers. I plan to do this when I build my next chassis this year. I did my current one with an air chisel and made mucho ventillation holes in the floorpan.

Get crushed or pelleted dry ice, spread it on the tar paper (or whatever Manntis likes to call it) Sit back, drink a beer.....have another. Then hit it with a mallet. Itll shatter like glass, easy clean up, no muss no fuss. Like my Sensei ROn Popeil says, "Set it and forget it".

 

hahahaha.
So how much louder is the car without that **** in there?

 

My buddies and I just did this with our 85 RX-7
You need approximately 125lbs of dry ice... then you crush some of it, keep some of it as sheets... cover the bottom of the entire car in the ice.. in the areas you want to work. cover the ice with a pice of rug or cardboard to insulate.... then come back an hour later and chip away at it.. it will come up in big and little pieces.. but the trick is to have it so cold that it will change color.
You need that much dry ice.. because as your working on one side... or one area. you put the ice int he other and wait.....
My buddies and i got an entire floor pan, including rear hatch done in about 6 hours.
Hope this helps

 

You got a floor pan done in 6hours with help and Dry ice?

hmmm... This is not gonna be a fun chore!

Well working on my car is definately a very zen experience!

 

82Transam, Its a racecar so hard to judge.

I heard it didint take near that much ice, nor that much time sdlipton.

Hell I did the floorpan with the chisel in less time.

 

I think Mother Nature has saved me the cost of the dry ice already, here in Michigan my Bituthane is mostly chipping off pretty easily. Maybe I'll try a few pounds of frozen air on the drivetrain tunnel problem areas, but I'm not in a hurry.

If the drumming noise is too loud I'll just have to make the motor louder to cover it up.

Forgot to mention: SAFTEY GLASSES OR GOGGLES MANDATORY! The chips fly everywhere.

 

I also used an air chisel..Took probably about 30mins.
The car didn't get noticeable louder at all.

 

srry double post

 

my borher did this to his car it was noticibly louder after the operation. Like mannis sait it was worse once you got up to speed.

I also wanted to know if there was a lighter replacement for it to keep the car quiet but still save some weight?
-seth

crap it wasn't a double post i deleted the original

 

Holy ****. I forgot I have an air chisel. When I bought my compressor it came with a pack of cheap air tools, most of which I haven't even used. All that work...
(insert picture of me banging my head against wall)

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "D'OH!!!"

If I find a few minutes this weekend I'll finish off the other half of the car. Unless of course I forget where my garage is or something. Jeesh.

 

Why not just hook up a radio control unit to the car?

You can delete the driver's seat, maybe the steering wheel.....and YOU.

 

I got bored today so I started to remove my tar stuff... Actualy it's much easier than I had expected. It is a pain down in the spare tire hole though.

 

how much weight will this remove?

 

JEC-31 what temperatures are you doing this in. Up in cananda here I'm sure it is cold enough to try this but just wanted to make sure.

 

LOL LOL LOL brain fart

 

Hell I'm doing it in near 80degree weather and I'm having no troubles witha chisel and hammer. I'm quite suprised that it's going as easy as it is!! 2/3 of the way done now... man there is a ton of this stuff!

 

HOW MUCH WEIGHT DO OYU FIGURE THIS WILL REMOVE?

 

I guess I'm going to find out! I'm almost done, now for the hard part... underneath the steering wheel. So far I have a fairly decent sized bag full of tar crap though. That white boarder bag is almost full and I have another bag with some tar in it too. I'll vac up the dust and add that to the bag so I can weigh it all out.

My car is so roomy with no interior! And those seats are suprisingly light too!

 

Whats that dark stuff where the tar used to be?
Is it just unpainted metal?