Cleaning underside of 1966 C2

[David M.]

I plan to do a spring clean on the underneath of my Vette. The underside is not extremely bad and was cleaned before I purchased the vehicle about 15 yrs ago. I have reviewed many of the older posts on this forum board about various cleaning products, brushes etc on doing a deep clean of the underside chassis, floor, pipes etc. Simple green degreaser along with a plastic putty knife with rounded corners and some brushes seem to be the consensus that work best. Has anyone recently completed the same cleaning project? If so what cleaner and techniques worked well? At some time before I purchased the Vette there undercoating sprayed over the fiberglass underneath and in the wheel wells that is starting to peel off. What is the best procedure to scape this off and get back to the natural fiberglass? The spare tire holder has also been painted black but fortunately does not have thick undercoating spread over it. What is the best product to removed the black paint or should it be left black?

[Edward D.]

Re: Cleaning underside of 1966 C2

David,
The simple green works good for general cleaning. A better product is painters prep-sol wax & grease remover. I use MasterPro 5900 but there are numerous brands. The undercoating is a different problem. Your wheel wells are supposed to have undercoating, it was factory applied. Your underbody shouldn't have it. Many years ago when I had my personal 66 apart (body off) I removed a dealer applied thick undercoat from the body. I used MEK to soften it and laboriously scraped it off. I wouldn't recommend you do this though as MEK is toxic, you need a good chemical respirator to do this. I then reapplied new undercoating to the wheel wells IAW the NCRS JG. Spare tire tub and lid should be natural although outsides of tub can have some blackout paint on them. To strip, first remove the tub. The best paint stripper contains methylene chloride (Aircraft Stripper for instance) but is no longer available since it was banned last year. I have had good results using citristrip but its a lot slower and more tedious. Lastly, nothing really wrong with leaving them black unless you are trying to maximize points in judging.

[David M.]

Re: Cleaning underside of 1966 C2

Edward,
Thank you that is helpful info.

[Alan D.]

Re: Cleaning underside of 1966 C2

Naturally you will end up with some small difficult areas, suggest you use brake part cleaner (adhere to can cautions). You can just blast the undercoating off.

[David M.]

Re: Cleaning underside of 1966 C2

Thanks Alan.

[Frank D.]

Re: Cleaning underside of 1966 C2

I use Simple Green and/or lacquer thinner and the Tub'O'Towels products (Amazon)