Underseal

Hi
This is my first post as I have only recently acquired a MK1 Golf GTi.
I have just the shell and will be sorting this before buying a donor car. I have just finished a nut and bolt restoration of a Ford Fiesta RS Turbo so have some experience. With the Ford I removed all of the original underseal so that the amount of metal work that was needed could be evaluated.

On Saturday I removed the front wings from the Golf shell with the intention of doing the same with the Golf; removing all of the underseal….
I did the passenger side yesterday, took most of the day just to do this area with a blow totch and wire brushes. (It is the worst job in the world).

With the passenger side now finished I am beginning to think I am wasting my time and making work….

The shell seems so solid to be honest. What someone has done is paint black oily stonechip type paint over the original white underseal (thats if the arches and floor would have been white on  white car??)

I want to have a clean surface so that I can paint over.

My questions are:

Is it pointless removing all of the underseal from the floor and arches? Bearing in mind it will be finished to a NEW standard when done. The Ford that I have just complete is as clean on the floor as it is on the top.

The floor and arches have a damp feel to the touch. This is due to the stone chip/underseal that has been applied in recent years I think. It is horrible oily stuff that come of on your hands if you touch it. Is there a paint that can go directly on to this or is there an easierway just to remove the coat that was not put on by VW?

Any advice on the subject would be hugely helpfull as It is sole destroying work removing what seems like good quality VW underseal.

Thanks

depends how nice you want it to look underneath really! the factory underseal is awesome, just as long as its not damaged. if its chipped or cracked then the rot will start, and its going to be hard to tell when covered with the black stuff.

if you want it to last millions of years then i would remove the black gunky stuff so you can get a good look at the factory underseal. look for any chipping or cracks, clean back to bare metal in these areas and deal with any rust. then i would just repair the sections you have uncovered and recover the whole lot with whatever topcoat you were planning.

rubjonny said

depends how nice you want it to look underneath really! the factory underseal is awesome, just as long as its not damaged. if its chipped or cracked then the rot will start, and its going to be hard to tell when covered with the black stuff.

if you want it to last millions of years then i would remove the black gunky stuff so you can get a good look at the factory underseal. look for any chipping or cracks, clean back to bare metal in these areas and deal with any rust. then i would just repair the sections you have uncovered and recover the whole lot with whatever topcoat you were planning.

Thanks mate
How though do you remove the black horrible top coat??
If I can remove this I will be very happy…

i think only a large amount of elbow grease will work, maybe thinners will cut it back if its still sticky? it sounds liek good old waxoil to me

rubjonny said

i think only a large amount of elbow grease will work, maybe thinners will cut it back if its still sticky? it sounds liek good old waxoil to me

I think you are correct in that it is probably waxoil; it is as a whole damp/sticky to touch!

Would the arches and floor all originally have been the same colour as the body was finished?

yes originally it'll all have been body colour

You don't want to hear this but definitely take it all off, I was amazed at the rust that was hidden. Use all sorts, thinners, blow torch and especially swear words, it doesn't like that  :wink:


Waxoil

Factory seal


I was welding lots but found a torch, hammer and chisel to be the best way on certain areas (carefully)

Shows the underlying rust that was hiding

RBPE said

You don't want to hear this but definitely take it all off, I was amazed at the rust that was hidden. Use all sorts, thinners, blow torch and especially swear words, it doesn't like that  :wink:


Waxoil

Factory seal


I was welding lots but found a torch, hammer and chisel to be the best way on certain areas (carefully)

Shows the underlying rust that was hiding

Hi
Great pics as that is similar to what it looks like. How did you remove the black stuff WITHOUT removing the factory under seal? I have done the passenger side front wing/arch and it took the best part of a day. I have taken it back to bare metal.


Are you saying that it is best to remove all of the factory under seal?

To be honest this is my plan. I am going to borrow a jig so that I can turn the car through 360 degrees. I will of course start a thread on here soon with all of the pictures.

Earlier today I had a look very quickly at the floor on the drivers side, close to the sill.
I got a scraper and the black scraped off revealing metal underneath; I was surprised that there was not the rubberised under seal there.

Cheers

I'm 3/4 of the way through stripping all mine back and there's no easy way to do this.  I gave up on all the blowtorch/heatgun/thinners/petrol and am just using wire wheels on the grinder, messy nasty demoralising job but there's always little bits right underneath the sealer in places that you would never find without removing it all.  
Grind it all off then use petrol or thinners to remove all the crap that's sprayed all over the bits you've already done.

I cheated with mine, I used a mates machine that's used for cleaning ship engines, bit like a high pressured jet washer but harsher. I also found, maybe due to the age of the gunk, that a hammer and chisel stripped it away nice and easy away from the metal.

It was a few years ago now, I've rebuilt the car twice and need to cut all the bay out and space frame it all for a conversion. It ended up well though: