Not a Stilo questione as such, but there may be some hoary old DIY mechanics on here who might have some experience, compared to the other forums which are full of girls or young blokes who don't know how to remove facial hair, never mind old underseal.
I'm currently cleaning up the under-floor of the Younger Mrs S's Cinquecento since it failed an MOT with some rusty chassis rails (now welded up). While I'm there (subframe out, fuel-tank out, brake lines out etc.) I decided it might be a good idea to repaint the whole underfloor and wheel arches etc. in a new shiny uniform yellow (n.b. the Cinq' is yellow ... but you probably guessed ).
The underbody Shutz coating is in good nick apart from the odd rusty patch which I've repaired.. but over the years and previous owners, the car has also acquired several areas (inner sills etc.) of underseal. I've poked about and it seems to be solid unerneath.. so it seems the underseal has been put on there as additional protection and done a good job. In other areas, it covers a rust blister or some other minor blemish... and I'm unpicking those and repairing them.
But the underseal is a) horrible b) not overpaintable and c) sticky.. so caught a load of dust and grit.
I want to remove it all, so I have either painted metal (body primer grey or yellow) or the rubbery Schutz stuff, which I can repaint in the shiny yellow.
What's the best way to remove underseal? Degreaser kind of works.. paraffin kind of works... but they don't shift it easily.. I have to scrub/agitate it with the missus' dish brush and apart from she notices when she uses it for the washing up, I get covered in underseal spatter and fumes. They also don't rinse off with water very well... (even the degreaser). I have to get detergent on it to lift it off the metal and that's just another faff, lying in the wet from having rinsed it, scrubbing it some more.
I've done about 1/4 of the rear floorpan (so about 1/8 of the rear area I want to clean up) and it's taking ages. What's a better way to do it?
Ralf S.
I'm currently cleaning up the under-floor of the Younger Mrs S's Cinquecento since it failed an MOT with some rusty chassis rails (now welded up). While I'm there (subframe out, fuel-tank out, brake lines out etc.) I decided it might be a good idea to repaint the whole underfloor and wheel arches etc. in a new shiny uniform yellow (n.b. the Cinq' is yellow ... but you probably guessed ).
The underbody Shutz coating is in good nick apart from the odd rusty patch which I've repaired.. but over the years and previous owners, the car has also acquired several areas (inner sills etc.) of underseal. I've poked about and it seems to be solid unerneath.. so it seems the underseal has been put on there as additional protection and done a good job. In other areas, it covers a rust blister or some other minor blemish... and I'm unpicking those and repairing them.
But the underseal is a) horrible b) not overpaintable and c) sticky.. so caught a load of dust and grit.
I want to remove it all, so I have either painted metal (body primer grey or yellow) or the rubbery Schutz stuff, which I can repaint in the shiny yellow.
What's the best way to remove underseal? Degreaser kind of works.. paraffin kind of works... but they don't shift it easily.. I have to scrub/agitate it with the missus' dish brush and apart from she notices when she uses it for the washing up, I get covered in underseal spatter and fumes. They also don't rinse off with water very well... (even the degreaser). I have to get detergent on it to lift it off the metal and that's just another faff, lying in the wet from having rinsed it, scrubbing it some more.
I've done about 1/4 of the rear floorpan (so about 1/8 of the rear area I want to clean up) and it's taking ages. What's a better way to do it?
Ralf S.