Cleaning underbody

[William B.]

What is the best way to clean the underside of my '61 body (not chassis)? Need to get rid of the gunk and grime.

Thanks,

Bill

[John K.]

Re: Cleaning underbody

Bill,

I just finished cleaning the underside of my car, I used scotchbrite, a hard plastic scraper and Greased Lighting Blaster. It is like 409 and many other heavy duty cleaners. It was a messy job but the finished product is worth the effort.

John Kuhn

[William B.]

Re: Cleaning underbody

Thanks John. I will lots of time on my hands...I'll give her a try.

Bill

[Stephen B.]

Re: Cleaning underbody

I just finist this excepionally nasty job.Depending on what part of the pan ,and wheel wells your dealing with,I've use everything from light blasting to thinner and steel wool to scrapers to soaking with solvents,and even jel stripper. I've done 4 of these so far and there isn't one answer that fits all. experiment with different products and what ever works for you must be the way it's done.Good look on a very bad job.
Stephen Barrett (21558)

[Greg L.]

Re: Cleaning underbody

Bill I used Simple Green with various different sized soft paint brushes along with a garden hose.

The Simple Green works great at cutting old road grime and the garden hose came in handy to rinse it off so that I could check on my progress. The larger paint brushes were for the open areas and the smaller ones for the hard to get places and areas with factory overspray or markings.

It all came out great but I was literaly soaked to the bone from head to toe!

Oh ya wear safety glasses to keep the cleaners and grime from getting in your eyes.

[John F.]

Re: Cleaning underbody

Probably a whole lot easier with the body off where you can get to everything. I just spent two late afternoons pressure washing the engine & compartment and undercarriage of my recent purchase 55 Bel Air. You sure do get soaked and have grease from head to toe. Didn't take any pics of the undercarriage.
John F

[Keith R.]

Re: Cleaning underbody

Eastwood makes a product called Chassis Kleen that they say is a very aggressive cleaner. Has anyone tried using that to clean the underbody?

[Valeria H.]

Re: Cleaning underbody

Keith and Gina,
This is a great question as I am in the process of beautification of my 60' for the convention. I am eagerly awaiting any further responses.
Valeria

[Tom S.]

Re: Cleaning underbody

Combination, simple green, putty knifes, paint brushes and diesel fuel on the difficult parts, brake clean,wire brushes,paint brushes , old tooth brushes. They all work good. And by the way one heck of a lot of ELBOW GREASE!!!!!!! I am almost done it has been a long haul.Tom

[Grant W.]

Re: Cleaning underbody

If the body is off the car. It makes things much easier. I used Easy off oven spray, Power washer is a good idea, for the heavy duty caked on stuff. Once all the heavy crud is off then I would wipe down with simple green, I didn't have any so I used lacquer thinner and took all the black out paint and all off.
Thanks, grant

[Bob I.]

Heat Gun and putty knife, for the heavy stuff, watch the knife. to prevent gouging the body. Then Lacquer thinner and Scotch Britte pad, I took two weeks. the entire body had been undercoated. If I were to do it again, I would have left, the wheel well coating. And painted that area.

I uncovered, assembly line marks, pretty cool.

Bob

[Patrick H.]

Re: Cleaning underbody

I used kerosene (no open flames, please) and a couple of different brushes to clean the bottom of the orange 72. With the car on my lift, the 1/2 to 1 inch of dirt and oil and grease came right off.