going to paint/seal the underneath and inner arches of my mk2 in the next few weeks along with painting the axle, subframe, wishbones etc etc. just wondering whats the best way to get rid of all the old ****ty sealer underneath my car and on the inner arches? also how clean does it have to be for the sealer to stick?? i haven't the money yo get the axle and other bits and pieces sandblasted and powdercoated so what would best best way to prepare and paint them?? cheers jamie
Re:Underseal Hi there, I'm presently restoring a MK 2 GTI and the best way to get the old underseal off is to use the wire wheel disks on a small grinder. These are the one's where the wire looks braided as opposed to standard wire wheels. There is still some graft in getting it off but it's a lot better than trying to use a scraper. If you're going to use a grinder and disk then wear eye & ear protection and a mask as this stuff is messy and the wire wheels throw off slivers of metal. When you get the sealant off and provided there is no rust then use a zinc rich primer like zinc 182 or Bilt Hamber Electrox. Hope this helps.
It's a tremendous ballache of a job! Just scrape any loose stuff off, wire wheel any rust off, then go over it with fresh.
cheers lads with regards to the axle and subframe etc, should i seal or just paint, and what sort of paint should i use?? cheers again
Re:Underseal Don't just scrape off rust and go over it again that's just plain stupid. If you find rust then get it off with the grinder treat it with some sort of stabiliser like POR-15 then use the zinc rich primers like I said and then underseal it again. Jolfa is right that it's a ballache of a job but if you're going to tackle it then do it properly and you just have to do it once. Regarding the rear axle I did get it shot blasted as it was pretty rotten with rust. I got it zinc coated by the same guy (50 Euros for everything) and just yesterday I painted it with black Hammerite metal paint. It will probably need another coat and then that's it I'm doing no more to it. By the way if you are going to drop the back axle then get the axle bushes changed as well if they've never been done before-mine were totally shot.
im buying a polybushed axle this weekend so happy days, theres only one we hole of rust underneath and im getting that welded up otherwise everything it solid so just a load of ****ty work to do lol. cheers again
Heat gun and a paint scraper is much easier than a wire brush attachment. Roll the car over too if you can, or you will most likely give up because your arms just cant take it any longer!! See pics in my sig link for examples of this.