removing the tar in the boot of a mk 2

[wishihadars1800]

[Mark Cogan]

[Roger Miller]

[Paul Dunstan]

[Rod Jacome]

[wishihadars1800]

[Rod Jacome]

[Glenn_T]

I have had a bit of experience with this recently, during restoration of my MK1 RS2000.

As we were painting it inside and out, including the underside of the floor i wanted to get all the surfaces as clean as possible, removing the dirt, deadener (spray on tar) and excess seam sealer. And also because the car will hopefully see the track again one day i thought i could probably shed a few kilo's from the weight too.

As with most Escorts the seam sealer was up to 3 inches wide and 2 inches thick, and in some areas wasn't even near any seams - probably there for NVH. To remove the bulk of this i used a pack of wooden handled, steel scrapers, 1in 2in and 3in in size - similar to a BBQ scraper. I picked these up from supercheap for a couple of dollars.

I then tried various steel and plastic stripping wheels on a drill. This i only really found of any use for the underside of the car or spots where there is the hard non-tar sealer, similar to drip check. The wire wheels could grind this hard plastic stuff down pretty easily and were good for spots where you wanted to remove paint and rust - especially if you use one of the coarse twisted wire wheels.

The plastic wheels were great for removing loose paint flakes, dirt and underbody deadener under the car with out going all the way back to bare metal and do not damage the steel surface underneath.

When using either type wheels, remember to reverse the drill every so often as the bits tend to curl from the pressure/heat and will work fine again in reverse fro a while. Also i always wore a full face shield and a nose mouth/ventilator.

For the inside floor, boot floor, and inside quarter panels and anywhere else i could find tar i got a container of thinners and dipped scothbrite scourer pads into it and then rub the area. This worked not only very well, but also incredibly fast, but was useless underneath the car due to gravity sucking the thinners out of the scourer. For all flat surfaces and sides of inner panels it was fine. I also got some heavy duty chemical resistant gloves for doing this.

After a lrub over with the scotch brite and thinners, a final wipe over with a rag dipped in thinners should leave the surface unbelievably clean.

After stuffing around with a heap of other ways trying to clean the floor inside, i couldn't believe how easy the scotch brite/thinners made the job.

Give it a try.

Glenn