[T3] Undervoat question

[Bobsnotch at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/29/2011 9:03:24 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
djsanderson at telus.net writes:

One of  the fenders has some undercoat. What is curious is that some of  
the  undercoat obviously did not stick well because I was able to  
simply  scrape it away and it came off in flat sections. On other  
spots,  however, it was stuck firmly and I had to use a heat gun to  
soften  it before I could scrape it off. I am wondering what the  
consensus  is on spraying undercoat on these cars. I live in the  
Pacific  Northwest where we have lots of rain. Also, I wondered why the  
stuff  did not stick so well in some spots. Was undercoat something the   
factory sprayed on or would it have been done by the  dealer?



Dave, the undercoating was dealer applied (ask Brian Fye how it was done,  
as he did it at the dealer (so he claims)). I myself prefer to strip all of 
it  off, epoxy prime it, and paint it (clear coat it too, if you can (it's  
very easy to do with the fenders off)).This way you can keep an eye out for 
any  "new rust", and it'll clean up nice and easy after being out for a 
drive  (basically wipes off). I've found this works great, since I started doing 
it  about 15 years ago. It's a little more expensive than "road tar", but 
it lasts  longer. In fact ALL of my own cars are done this way, including the 
T-34  that I'm still working on. I did a friends pickup truck like this 
back in 99,  and it still looks like it just got shot. :O 
 
A lot of that undercoating was just shot with a special spray gun, and the  
surface wasn't really prepped for it to grab. This is why some stayed, and 
some  didn't. It could also have partly dried out, then just fell off (I've 
seen that  happen on several later cars). However, some of the later cars 
that I've  seen (71 and on), have what looks like "body shultz", which is a 
sprayable  rock guard. This stuff grabs good, but was shot before the car was 
painted at  the factory. Some of this has chipped off over the years, and is 
why there's  rust trying to come from under the paint. Karmann used this on 
the T-34 on all 4  corners (at least mine was), but my 71 Canadian Notch 
had it on it's 4 fenders  too. This means you could have gotten either over 
the years. On my 64 T-34,  where it was missing, was also rusted. That's why I 
stripped it off (like you, I  spent way too much time removing rust, for it 
to come back). I hope this helps,.   

Bob 65 Notch  S with sunroof and IRS (Krusty)
71 Notch (Krunchy)
64 T-34 Ghia  (Wolfie)
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