race car shell prep
 

hey all
this morning 23racer and i stripped all the sound deadening and insullation out of an 86 shell. For all of yours info the dry ice method is the way to go. A job that took 23racer 3 weeks to do took us 2 hours with 3 guys and 60 lbs. of dry ice and hammers and scrapers.
We are converting an N/A car that had been turbo'd back to N/A. Which by the way is what i heard racin jason is doing as well. My car is next for the dry ice treatment in the summer.

how long do you let the dry ice sit on the tar?
---just curious b/c im about to do it myself----

It depends. You'll get a knack for it as you go along, but if you can see frost on the undercarriage of the car, wait a few minutes and it's ready.

Dry ice is the way to go, anybody that does it any other way has some sort of disability. ;) :D

it took you 3 weeks??? should take like 2 days max

We probably let it sit for 5-10 minutes. sorry you are probably right, 23racer did it to his car and i thought he said it took him that long, maybe he can verify. But yeah just empty out the whole car and make a barrier around the transmission tunnel so that the dry ice can sit on the side and top. Fill the mould and let it sit for 10-15 minutes so that it gets good and cold. then pull down the barrier and start hitting the tunnel with a hammer so that the crap starts to crumble or shatter. Do the same steps with the rest of the interior. just make sure not to touch the dry ice with bare skin cuz it is really cold. after the whole process is complete you might have some boogers left on the tranny tunnel from where the undercoating got baked on due to heat, just go in there with a propane torch and burn it out and then you are ready for starting to rebuild your race car


oh yeah and the stuff on the firewall is really hard to get off, but there isn't much to get off so don't worry if you leave it there

Yeah, dry ice rocks :)

PaulC

we were gonna use liquid nitrogen but it cost like 8 bucks a pint here :)

Yes, I am Stupid
 

Just to confirm what Blue 88 said. Using dry ice is the best thing to remove sound deadening material ever. Just dump it in, wait a couple of minutes and wail away. The stuff just jumps off the body.

And yes I learned this the hard way. On my car, I was in a rush to put the cage in. The first race was looming and I wanted to be ready. I just chipped away the areas I had to to install the cage.

After installing the cage I then tried to remove the deadener in August using a putty knife and a small hammer and contorting myself around the cage. Yes it did take me all of 3 weeks, part time. I couldn't handle more than 4 hours at a stretch before going batty and wanting to burn the car. It just goes to prove that the warmer the temperatures, ambient was around 80 degrees, the more like really sticky toffee the deadener was. It was a really good test of my patience and endurance as the largest piece was about the size of a playing card. Most was the size of a quarter.

As a side note, I wouldnt recommend using liquid nitrogen. Even if you didnt severely freezer burn yourself, which is more than likely, the metal would become brittle and will shatter like glass if hit with a hammer. Don't be stupid like me, use dry ice, its cheap (less than $50 bucks) and really fast and easy.

Acid stripping
 

I used an angle grinder and a wire wheel when I did my 1984 race car. Bloody huge mess and it left an oily residue behind. My Turbo II shell is over at the acid stripping shop right now. I thought about scraping it out, but $600 CAD and the car comes out bare metal everywhere is hard to beat. Next weeked's project: seam welding 101. Then roll cage construction followed by reassembly.

-Trent

Did any of you measure the weight of the deadener you removed. I keep hearing claims of 75 pounds, 50 pounds, etc. I am not convinced of their accuracy. My own guesstimate is about 10 pounds, thus explaining why I haven't gotten around to it yet.:D

I'd really love to have an accurate answer.

Did you remove undercoating as well? If so, how much did it weigh?

I weighed mine in at 22lbs.
I used an air chisel with no dry ice. I think it still only took me a couple hours.

I got about 20 in one car, and more from another (I forget what it was exactly, but more than 20). The useless wiring was another 15 (I couldn't believe this part). 35 pounds for two part time days' work was well worth it, in the end.

EDIT: the 15 pounds of wiring was with two speakers and two amps, but no other radio equipment (god bless unreported recovered stolen cars ;) )

My remains weighed 30 lbs.

PaulC

Mine weighed at least that also! :D

I think what suprised me more was the weight of the excess wiring that was removed. It was incredible

Agreed, the wiring harness was insane.
I used bolt cutters to get through all the wires right as they passed through the firewall. I was shocked at the weight. Sometimes I think 1900lbs will be easy... sometimes not. :)