Plastic blasting ??

[the_engineers]

Why? Because after doing the underside of my car with Aluminum Oxide, I began to see how much media was beginning to accumulate in hidden areas like in the frames and wheel wells. I tried to keep it to a minimum. No matter how hard, it found ways to be stubborn to blow out.

Had mine blasted in 1996 or so (whenever the Nats were in Indy).  To this day, if I floor it, I make a pile of sand on the carpet.  Thing is, only the outside was blasted and I've had the entire dash, heater box, etc out for restoration.

The only blasting I would ever consider in the future is CO2. 

[Topcat]

After any blasting has been completed; the first thing to do to help remove as much media as possible is to get the strongest lawn/leaf blower you can get your hands on.
I used a Black and Decker unit and almost created a Dust bowl.

http://s.shld.net/is/image/Sears/07179483000

Then after that, go hook up the fine tube extension blow tip and work on the crevices, nooks and crannies the media hides in.

Repeat the procedure numerous times.

['Cuda Hunter]

I spoke with dry ice specialists in Denver about blasting my car.
They said they specialize in big commercial equipment.
Then they told me it would be alot of money to do a car.
I would love to go dry ice.


Can't wait for pics Pywell.

[pywell]

I cant wait to go pickup the car and do a full inspection, I am curious to see how much of the media is left behind. I expect the car to be about 400 - 500$ total cost for the body, I will let you know.

[aris_unlimited]

Have you looked into soda blasting? I had them soda blast the frame/springs/etc. on my seats and it worked great. The guy didn't want to use sand on some pieces of metal that thin because he was worried it would damage them. So he soda blasted it and it took everything down to metal........looks a lot better than it did.

['Cuda Hunter]

I would think that the soda would stack up in the nitch's and not really fall out like sand would.  Probably a good thing.?

Can't wait to see pics Pywell.  Do you have a thread for your car?

[MoparCar]

Research Soda Blasting before committing. Some paint manufacturers will not warrant their systems/products if soda is used due to the residue/reaction/etc.

Wes

[sadil340]

My car was media blasted, no warping whatsoever. The blaster had vintage car experience and was known for his expertise. I even found a steel factory stamp on the roof! The body shop did a great job of blowing out all of the media and I haven't had any issues there...

[pywell]

I am busy uploading all the pictures to my gallery on my server so I will add some pictures soon. I found No warping on any of the skin surfaces like the roof (had outside and inside done). But amazingly I did find that on the right inner fender near the firewall the pressure actually blew it off the bracket (busted 2 YES 2 plug welds) HOLY CRAP. I cant remember if I was smart enough to take a pic of it but I can look at doing that next time Im working on the car. The car was fairly clean throughout but I did take the compressor and air blower to it and was pretty impressed the only spot that there was about 10 lbs of aluminium oxide was in the rocker boxes. 15 minutes of blowing it out extensively they were clean and the rest of the car is perfect too, no more sand at all hidden anywhere. I am lucky in this case because there isnt a hiding spot that I havent torn into to check for rust.

The updated thread for my project is available here http://www.cuda-challenger.com/cc/index.php?topic=73781.0 . I will update all what I have done there today to it and keep this related to the blasting.

Overall I am very impressed by the work. The cost is 8hrs for the body and the headers were done too. The rest of the mechanicals are being acide dipped so we will see them all back in 2 weeks.

Without the acid dipped parts I believe they bill out at 100$/hr so the body and headers were 800$, they gave us the car back without billing us for it until we pickup the rest of the parts so an actual price is not there yet.

[the_engineers]

Wow! Great price! Sounds like you're on your way!

['Cuda Hunter]

Thanks for the pics.  That is quite the pile of media.

['Cuda Hunter]

What is the red stuff that is left on some of the metal?
Is that heavy scaled rust? 

[pywell]

Some (ok ok, a lot) of the parts are not worth even attempting at saving. I have ordered a lot of new replacement peices and we went over the car before it got blasted on what was being saved and what is being cut out. The red stuff is parts that were not touched by blasting because I didnt want to pay to have parts blasted that  I was throwing out.

The pile of media is actually aluminum oxide and it was hidden 98% in the rockers. Since they are open I just shoved my air blower down there wide open and moved it around until it stopped coming out.

[pywell]

Cost and my findings

Total cost for the entire car was 1600$, that was body blasted and the rest of it chemically dipped. Honestly a little more then I expected, but we forgot to remove a few bushings etc... on the suspension peices which they kindly took care of so that being included it really was an excellent job and worth the cash for anyone doing a proper job restoring the car.

['Cuda Hunter]

That is not out of line. Are you happy with the results of the chemical dip?