• Hello Guest, welcome to the initial stages of our new platform!
    You can find some additional information about where we are in the process of migrating the board and setting up our new software here

    Thank you for being a part of our community!

240 Undercoat ?repair?

BeaverMeat

Active member
Joined
Aug 8, 2020
Location
Vancouver Island
Does anyone know what type of undercoat was most likely used on 1990 cars? Factory or dealer installed. Asphalt or rubber based?

The undercoat on my ?90 240 axle is still in decent shape just missing some spots here and there. Wanting to patch it and use appropriate coating so it will bond properly.

Any insight?

Or should I just degrease it, rattle can it, and call it a day. lol
 
For undercoat I like to use the stuff by Wurth. It's simliar or the same as what Euro car makers used. There is also good stuff from 3M. They make this stuff called body schutz which is what they use to protect the rocker panels.
 
^^ No kidding. The stuff Volvo used was pure tar. Not a rubberized formula such as those available today. Go to any auto parts store and pick up any one of the spray can undercoats they have on the shelf.
 
^^ No kidding. The stuff Volvo used was pure tar. Not a rubberized formula such as those available today. Go to any auto parts store and pick up any one of the spray can undercoats they have on the shelf.

No kidding. Definitely wear gloves when you change your fuel filter on an under coated car. Made that mistake once and my hands were sticky and stained rootbeer color for a week.
 
No kidding. Definitely wear gloves when you change your fuel filter on an under coated car. Made that mistake once and my hands were sticky and stained rootbeer color for a week.

A lil naphtha on a rag takes it right off. So does gasoline or diesel, like dissolves like. Depends on your tolerance for chemical exposure, the older I get the more I avoid it.
 
No kidding. Definitely wear gloves when you change your fuel filter on an under coated car. Made that mistake once and my hands were sticky and stained rootbeer color for a week.

Ha! I spent WEEKS soaked in that stuff ten years ago when I stripped my car down. Scraped every last inch of that stuff by hand. I stank of it.

Kerosene is best. It's much cleaner to work with than diesel. I put it in a spray bottle, soak a section down, and scrape away.
 
Ha! I spent WEEKS soaked in that stuff ten years ago when I stripped my car down. Scraped every last inch of that stuff by hand. I stank of it.

Kerosene is best. It's much cleaner to work with than diesel. I put it in a spray bottle, soak a section down, and scrape away.

^ This after a gentle heat gunning and scraping most all of it off with a 1" putty knife.
 
I tried all of the above on my 142. What really worked was a pneumatic undercoat removal tool. I literally f'd with that crap for weeks before getting one. After getting that I was finished in days.
Not going to lie, it creates a hell of a mess. But no nasty chemicals to deal with, no smells. Still need a respirator so you aren't breathing any debris.
Here's a link to one on Eastwood. I got mine on Amazon, but can't find it now.
https://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-pneumatic-rotary-removal-tool.html
Then I cleaned everything with lacquer thinner and sprayed it with Eastwood After Blast. No rust after 2 years, since I haven't worked on it much lately.
Fk4Iz4s.jpg
 
Last edited:
The little oscillating scrapers work wonders on this as well.

My car was like a mixed bag, some of it was dry, some of it was still gooey tar. The dried out stuff I made tracks with my little harbor freight pneumatic scraper. A needle scaler was also good for breaking it out of corners and folds up around the rear mounting points. The stuff that's still alive and gooey really needed the solvent to get moving.
 
If it's soft, you're doomed. I wonder if an angle grinder and wire brush with a cheap-o router speed controller would work like the pro-tools.
The slow die grinder thing is sweet, but i'd really have to try one before dropping that amount of money on a tool. But hey, maybe I'd find more uses for it.
 
If it's soft, you're doomed. I wonder if an angle grinder and wire brush with a cheap-o router speed controller would work like the pro-tools.
The slow die grinder thing is sweet, but i'd really have to try one before dropping that amount of money on a tool. But hey, maybe I'd find more uses for it.

I just kept finding any sort of "bristle" was just spreading the soft stuff around and loading itself up.
 
I also used a needle scaler for some tight spaces.
For the most part, mine was dry. Only area that was gooey was the transmission tunnel. For it, I was able to wipe it off with lacquer thinner.
But that grinder like tool really did the trick.
 
Back
Top