Anyone had their spider blasted? I am in the process of teardown and checking on blasting services. Both places I spoke to want to see the car to make sure the metal is strong enough to blast.
Anyone with experience?
Sandblasting
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manoa matt
- Posts: 3442
- Joined: Thu Oct 26, 2006 4:28 pm
- Your car is a: 1978 Fiat 124 Spider 1800
- Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
blasting
Are you blasting the whole car or just taking some parts to be cleaned?
Alot of places are going away from silica sand blasting. The silica is very fine sand which makes it ideal for blasting, but the silica is cancerous and somewhat expensive. When I had my cylinder head cleaned the machinist bead blasted it. Which is actually tiny glass beads. I never actually saw the material though. Many shops are now turning towards walnut shell blasting. The crushed up walnut shells are a perfect replacement for silica sand, and are not damaging to the substrate.
If you blast a piece of sheet metal with sand to remove the paint, the sand will remove the paint and will cause the sheet metal to look like an orange skin. Getting a good paint job will be a challenge.
If you blast a piece of sheet metal with crushed walnut shells to remove the paint. The shells will remove the paint without affecting the surface finish of the metal. As smooth as glass.
From what I've seen on the car remodel shows on tv, the metal is only questionable if it is rusty or rusted thru. Then the blasting agent tends to blast thru thin spots. If you are doing a total restoration, then, for them to find all the rusty spots will save you time, I also assume you will cut out and re weld in new sheet metal.
Matt
Alot of places are going away from silica sand blasting. The silica is very fine sand which makes it ideal for blasting, but the silica is cancerous and somewhat expensive. When I had my cylinder head cleaned the machinist bead blasted it. Which is actually tiny glass beads. I never actually saw the material though. Many shops are now turning towards walnut shell blasting. The crushed up walnut shells are a perfect replacement for silica sand, and are not damaging to the substrate.
If you blast a piece of sheet metal with sand to remove the paint, the sand will remove the paint and will cause the sheet metal to look like an orange skin. Getting a good paint job will be a challenge.
If you blast a piece of sheet metal with crushed walnut shells to remove the paint. The shells will remove the paint without affecting the surface finish of the metal. As smooth as glass.
From what I've seen on the car remodel shows on tv, the metal is only questionable if it is rusty or rusted thru. Then the blasting agent tends to blast thru thin spots. If you are doing a total restoration, then, for them to find all the rusty spots will save you time, I also assume you will cut out and re weld in new sheet metal.
Matt
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Mark_vaughn
The reason they are cautious is the heat that the blasting process creates in the metal can cause some sheet metal to warp. The only way they could tell me if it can be blasted is if I bring it by for a look. And at the moment it is in hundreds of pieces each in their own little zip lock bag with a name tag.
I would like to save myself the trouble of loading up and hauling if someone knows for sure it will warp the metal because it has happened to them.
There isn't a dedicated auto sand blaster around here, but a few guys will blast the cars on the side. I don't know/care what they use as long as all the paint, rust and tar crap is gone from everywere. There will be some body work to do afterwards, some that I know of now and some that I will find out about afterwards.
For those interested I am in the process of making the worst investment in my life, complete restoration of my Spider. Well, almost worst. I owned some WorldCom stock.
I am about 90% done tearing the inside out and have had some surprises along the way already. Rust where I didn't think there would be any, and clean where I was sure there would be a rust hole.
Pictures so far are on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marksfiatspider/
There are many pictures because this is my archive for putting everything back together again too.
I plan on painting it silver and getting a new black top. I am also looking into Rhino lining the underside, floorpans, engine bay, and under the windshield wiper cover area for corrosion protection. I plan on keeping the car indefinetly and do not want to ever do all this again!!
I am open to suggestions and improvements others have made along the way that may be easy to do with a bare metal car.
Areas I am looking into improving:
Engine, structural integrety, and electrical. I am going to take "Brown Wire Surgery" to the next level!!
[/url]
I would like to save myself the trouble of loading up and hauling if someone knows for sure it will warp the metal because it has happened to them.
There isn't a dedicated auto sand blaster around here, but a few guys will blast the cars on the side. I don't know/care what they use as long as all the paint, rust and tar crap is gone from everywere. There will be some body work to do afterwards, some that I know of now and some that I will find out about afterwards.
For those interested I am in the process of making the worst investment in my life, complete restoration of my Spider. Well, almost worst. I owned some WorldCom stock.
I am about 90% done tearing the inside out and have had some surprises along the way already. Rust where I didn't think there would be any, and clean where I was sure there would be a rust hole.
Pictures so far are on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marksfiatspider/
There are many pictures because this is my archive for putting everything back together again too.
I plan on painting it silver and getting a new black top. I am also looking into Rhino lining the underside, floorpans, engine bay, and under the windshield wiper cover area for corrosion protection. I plan on keeping the car indefinetly and do not want to ever do all this again!!
I am open to suggestions and improvements others have made along the way that may be easy to do with a bare metal car.
Areas I am looking into improving:
Engine, structural integrety, and electrical. I am going to take "Brown Wire Surgery" to the next level!!
[/url]
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manoa matt
- Posts: 3442
- Joined: Thu Oct 26, 2006 4:28 pm
- Your car is a: 1978 Fiat 124 Spider 1800
- Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
restoration
Mark,
I know exactly how you feel. I just wanted to replace a few gaskets and oil seals and "while your at it" I ended up doing an almost complete restoration. Only trouble is I had to do it peace meal by sections. Its a little car, but thers alot of work.
The one area that I thought every spider owner should look at is the cowel panel area. I had some holes in my floor at the very front, right at the bend from vertical to horizontal surface. I thought it was from a bad heater core, and very well could be a contributing factor. However there were too many holes in too many locations to be just the heater core.
The cowel panel area is basically a little roof system. It catches water, has a waterproofing membrane, and channels water out, (hopefully).
Alot of people never look here unless there is a problem with the wipers. Too bad. When I took my panel off it looked like your pictures. A black asphaltic based coating that had cracks, seperations, bubbles and voids.
The coating is very similar to roofing tar with regards to its properties. After some time, and parking your car in the sun, which is inevitable, the coating looses its elastic qualities. Also there were alot of leaves and debries that soaked up water and held it, or they blocked up the fresh air intake.
If the flap for the fresh air intake is stuck open or can not fully shut, then water will get in, go past the heater core and leak out onto the floor boards.
After I took a scraper and wire brush to the old coating , just to smooth it out and remove loose material and high spots, not to remove it completely, way too big of a job. I cleaned it with soap and water to remove any grease, then I applied a liquid roofing membrane, to seal all the bubble holes and cracks. Apply several coats, and make shure its latex based or siliconized. Do not apply an asphalt based product. It will take forever to dry, if it does. It will smell like tar when the car heats up, or if you park in the sun, and will eventually dry out and crack like the origional membrane.
I believe the product I used was made my "Henry" and is called elastocaulk roof patching compound Its white, so you will need to spray some black undercoating over it, otherwise when you look into the cowel vents you will see white in there. While I was at it I refurbished the heater/blower and the controls. Now all my heater controls ACTUALLY WORK.
In the picture labeled "what is this" thats part of the air injection system and that can be removed, because it looks like the pump is gone and the air rail on the head is gone. The "whats this" on the firewall is an emissions electrovalve either for the air pump, or the EGR and can also be removed. The thing on the top of the manifold can be removed and pluged or just buy some rubber vacume caps, it also has to do with the EGR. The intake manifold "what can I remove" It depends on your carb. You can remove the single fitting or just cap it off. I can't remember what this went to. The double tee fitting, one side goes to the brake booster, the other side with the smaller fitting goes to the fast idle electrovalve(looks like the one on the firewall, but has larger diameter fittings) after the hose comes off the electrovalve it goes to the fast idle fitting on the carb. Thats assuming you have a 34ADFA carb
Matt
I know exactly how you feel. I just wanted to replace a few gaskets and oil seals and "while your at it" I ended up doing an almost complete restoration. Only trouble is I had to do it peace meal by sections. Its a little car, but thers alot of work.
The one area that I thought every spider owner should look at is the cowel panel area. I had some holes in my floor at the very front, right at the bend from vertical to horizontal surface. I thought it was from a bad heater core, and very well could be a contributing factor. However there were too many holes in too many locations to be just the heater core.
The cowel panel area is basically a little roof system. It catches water, has a waterproofing membrane, and channels water out, (hopefully).
Alot of people never look here unless there is a problem with the wipers. Too bad. When I took my panel off it looked like your pictures. A black asphaltic based coating that had cracks, seperations, bubbles and voids.
The coating is very similar to roofing tar with regards to its properties. After some time, and parking your car in the sun, which is inevitable, the coating looses its elastic qualities. Also there were alot of leaves and debries that soaked up water and held it, or they blocked up the fresh air intake.
If the flap for the fresh air intake is stuck open or can not fully shut, then water will get in, go past the heater core and leak out onto the floor boards.
After I took a scraper and wire brush to the old coating , just to smooth it out and remove loose material and high spots, not to remove it completely, way too big of a job. I cleaned it with soap and water to remove any grease, then I applied a liquid roofing membrane, to seal all the bubble holes and cracks. Apply several coats, and make shure its latex based or siliconized. Do not apply an asphalt based product. It will take forever to dry, if it does. It will smell like tar when the car heats up, or if you park in the sun, and will eventually dry out and crack like the origional membrane.
I believe the product I used was made my "Henry" and is called elastocaulk roof patching compound Its white, so you will need to spray some black undercoating over it, otherwise when you look into the cowel vents you will see white in there. While I was at it I refurbished the heater/blower and the controls. Now all my heater controls ACTUALLY WORK.
In the picture labeled "what is this" thats part of the air injection system and that can be removed, because it looks like the pump is gone and the air rail on the head is gone. The "whats this" on the firewall is an emissions electrovalve either for the air pump, or the EGR and can also be removed. The thing on the top of the manifold can be removed and pluged or just buy some rubber vacume caps, it also has to do with the EGR. The intake manifold "what can I remove" It depends on your carb. You can remove the single fitting or just cap it off. I can't remember what this went to. The double tee fitting, one side goes to the brake booster, the other side with the smaller fitting goes to the fast idle electrovalve(looks like the one on the firewall, but has larger diameter fittings) after the hose comes off the electrovalve it goes to the fast idle fitting on the carb. Thats assuming you have a 34ADFA carb
Matt
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mdrburchette
- Posts: 5754
- Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:49 am
- Your car is a: 1972 Fiat 124 Sport
- Location: Winston-Salem, NC
We sandblasted my 72 Spider right in the yard. It had two coats of paint on it so it was slow going. The only problem I had with warping panels was on the flat style hood. It made little indentions that followed the bracing. We should have lowered the air pressure or chemical stripped the hood, but hindsight's 20/20. The other thing you need to be aware of is sand will find it's way in every nook and cranny and will be blown out when you paint the car. Make sure you tape up any holes where you don't want sand. A good blowing out with an air hose and vacuuming should be done before final prep. The metal after sandblasting is perfect for epoxy primer to adhere to and the primer (I use PPG DP40) will fill in any rough spots due to sandblasting. Epoxy primer is also a great rust inhibitor.
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So Cal Mark
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racydave
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Mark_vaughn
Just a note for future reference.
The sandblasting is probably not an option for the Fiat. I had the underside of my trunk lid blasted as a test with mixed results.
The factory coat is VERY tough and would require more time, which creates more heat, which will warp all the body panels. He hit it with the same stuff he was using to blast a cement truck body and it still left little paint specks everywhere.
My solution is to leave the original paint underneath and just sand everything well on the body panels. I am still going to have the underside, inside, engine bay and trunk blasted though. I thought my trunk lid was in excellent shape until he knocked the paint and rust off. There are several little rust holes in the stiffining parts of the lid.
It hides EVERYWHERE!! Even under smooth paint.
The sandblasting is probably not an option for the Fiat. I had the underside of my trunk lid blasted as a test with mixed results.
The factory coat is VERY tough and would require more time, which creates more heat, which will warp all the body panels. He hit it with the same stuff he was using to blast a cement truck body and it still left little paint specks everywhere.
My solution is to leave the original paint underneath and just sand everything well on the body panels. I am still going to have the underside, inside, engine bay and trunk blasted though. I thought my trunk lid was in excellent shape until he knocked the paint and rust off. There are several little rust holes in the stiffining parts of the lid.
It hides EVERYWHERE!! Even under smooth paint.