Paint stripping and e-coating

[tmen]

Does anyone have any experience with dipping the body to strip the paint and the e-coating?

[Dave Owens]

I do have experience as I am the North American facilities, maintenance & paint systems manager for an equipment manufacturer. Included is 2 of the largest e-coat systems in the US.

Caustic will remove organics such as paint, glue, under coating but will not remove rust. Acid dip ( pickling ) will remove scale and rust but will also attack the clean metal. Some use a acid that does include surfactants so a combination is performed at the same time. I do not recommend though as the acid will remove steel from all areas of the body and can thin the sheetmetal. Also all inaccessable areas will be left bare and thus very difficult to reprotect.

Media blasting the body using abrasive on rust areas and soda on cosmetic sheet metal is a good, fast, method.

[Lynn B]

I made the mistake of using soda blasting on the ENTIRE car that I was restoring a decade ago. The cleanup is a time consuming nightmare, and I am still getting soda out of the SEAMS, of the hood's reinforcment structure, that is spot welded to the underside of the hood every time i open it. There is no way to get inside these areas to clean them out. I agree that soda blasting has it's place, but it is not EVERYWHERE on the car.

[uk58]

I have used a company here in the UK to chemical strip and e-coat all of the sheet metal forward of the bulkhead, and while costly, I was very pleased with the results. Sure the metal may be thinned by a very small amount, and some pinholes appeared which i didn't know about, but better to know before the paint job. Note if you do the body, the original factory lead filler will disappear also.
The parts came back with e-coat looking brand new, in fact better, as most hidden areas didnt get any paint in 1958. As the e-coat is electrostatically applied, it reaches everywhere.
The e-coat is a storage protection, and scratches through very easily, you need to get a good tough primer on asap.

I haven't attempted to do the body, as there are too many damaged areas, I need to repair all these and get the strength back before I consider lifting it off.

There is a video and tech info here - http://www.surfaceprocessing.co.uk/technical-process.html

HTH Tony