wheelhouse - How do you clean?

[stangman16]

Apart from buying a sandblaster, how do you clean a wheelhouse that looks like this?

I'm in the process of doing the quarter panels on my '66 and I'd like to POR-15 the inside of the wheelhouse as well. Using a grinder seems to work but just is going to take quite a while. I'm curious what other methods have worked to get these ready for paint/POR15?

 

[69Rcode_Mach1]

If you are trying to get rid of that surface rust, get a batch of muriatic acid from home depot. Brush it on and watch it work its magic. It will eat up all the rust and then you just wash it off. Be sure to use eye protection and do not inhale, use a mask as it will burn up your lungs. Couple bucks for enough to last you 10 years.

 

[stangman16]

No, I'm going to POR-15 the surface rust.

How do I clean the black area inside the wheelhouse which looks like 30+ years of caked dirt, tar, etc. It grinds but it takes forever... I was hoping there's something that will break it down so I could scrape it off, because right now it is hard as a rock and I don't think my air compressor can handle a sandblaster.

 

[65wildstang]

I used a grinder with a 3M paint & rust stripper wheel. It is black in color & is a very hard sponge looking material. It worked very well as i ended up using the 3M disc to strip the whole underside of the car to metal. There may be some type of chemical stripper that will work, but I haven't had much luck with paint strippers. Seems like it takes a few coats & makes to much of a mess. Good luck

 

[Smitten65]

I used a combination of methods. Like you, I decided that using a wire cup on a drill would take forever on that hard old tar, so I put Peel Away stripper on it. It didn't work as well as I hoped and was a bit messy but aftre a few applications of it each followed by wire wheeling it ended up working pretty well and I got all the old stuff off. I got everything down to bare metal and then followed that with Eastwood's rust encapsulator, just to seal it forever. I followed that with 3M's Body Schutz. I know some don't like Body Schutz and go more for some kind of paint, but that's just personal preference. In any case, it's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it!

 

[robbz28]

Looks like you already have the outer skin removed....have you considered just replacing the wheel well entirely? Probably the same/less amount of work involved. If you do POR-15 you had better put undercoat back on top of it or else rocks etc are going to sandblast that POR off and you will be back to square 1

 

[tchesney]

I've done several rotisserie restorations, tried just about everything to get that stuff off, and I've found a very quick and painless way.

Compact Air Needle Scaler

These things work great!! Hold the tool at about a 45 degree angle to the surface and scale away. That old undercoating will chip right off!

 

[palerider94]

Floor adhesive remover from home dept is great for taking off tar/old undercoating.