Started on the underbody/chassis

Been scraping off the grease and grime, miserable job! Comes off easy enough but still. Taking a break for sec, about 1/3 done with the scraping. My plan is to scrape the bulk of it clean then push it out in the driveway and soak it with purple power sprayed from a weed sprayer, leave overnight then pressure wash, repeat. Then roll it back in, block it up, remove the axles and paint the whole underbody with a couple of kbs coatings chassis kits. Then clean up the axles, springs and related parts with grinder with wire brush and coat them.

Now thats a job for a real van lover!

i know the feeling, but when its ready and painted it is very much worth the effort.

that is how i removed all of mine, only have to do it once...

I have to do mine.
On he positive side, I have to believe the coating of grease/gunk is what preserved the underside all these years.
It has got to go before I begin working on the springs and axles.
I was hoping for a lazy mans solution to get this done... such as spray on, spray off.
I guess sometimes you gotta get dirty.

SlowShadow wrote:I have to do mine.
On he positive side, I have to believe the coating of grease/gunk is what preserved the underside all these years....
I guess sometimes you gotta get dirty.

I had the same feeling about it, I think that's why it's in such good shape. at the bottom of the gunk the oil/grime has formed a kind of varnish which peels off in ribbons off the putty knife.

Well I finally found the time and descent weather on a Saturday to get back to this, Been wanting...err needing to get this done for several months. Yesterday I rented a hot pressure washer and went to town on it, it was a miserable job, took 4 hr's to do, but it worked really well. Now I can finally move forward on the chassis. Need to get the motor mounts moved and cut for the hump and I can paint the underbody and start running new lines   

Looking good.

Damn....that turned out nice.

wow. The heated pressure washer did that by itself? Looks great!!!
If that's what you are saying, I am NOT wasting time on my back with a scraper and chemicals!

Congrats Seth! It looks really clean and well worth the effort you put in!

Thanks guys. Yeah, brutal job but it was worth it vanny. Every nook and cranny is damn near spotless. FCC, I scraped the bulk off with a putty knife a couple months ago. It took that blazing hot water and the smallest fan nozzle, white one, keeping it just inches away to cut that varnish type stuff at the surface of the metal. None of the other nozzles would cut it, it was an industrial diesel fired, gas powered pressure washer that had to be loaded with a fork lift, I left it in the pickup while I used it. Jacked the van up as high as I could on either end @ a time.

Today, after the earlier post, I filled my sprayer with a gallon of undiluted Purple Power and soaked the entire under carriage with it, let it sit for an hour or two and rinsed it good to get any residue left on off.

Magic Bus wrote:Now thats a job for a real van lover!

Took the words right out of my mouth!

I love a clean undercarriage. I can appreciate the work! Please keep us updated on progress.

Very Nice Seth, I can not even begin to add up the hours I spent on cleaning mine up, I know it was well in excess of 12 and most likely closer to 24.