$600 to sand/soda blast eng compartment and underside?

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carcrazyguy

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The body shop that is working on the Duster is planning to put the car on a rotisserie this week. They want me have the bottom of the car and the engine compartment sand/soda blasted. He talked to "his guy" and got a quote of $600. The main reason the shop wants the blasting done is because the car was a "factory" under coated car. So my question is, is the sand/soda blasting the best way to remove the undercoating? Is it worth the $600?
 
Sounds like a good price, i was quoted $1800.00 to blast the entire Duster.
 
600 doesn't sound like much money for that job... doing a complete undercoated undercarriage and firewall/ fenderwells? nasty job, I do not think I would flinch at that.
 
Sounds like you don't know your body man very well.Or perhaps you didn't discuss the level of finish that was or is expected.What is involved? Will he move your car to his shop,blast then return to the original shop? All this takes time and money.Too many times we say-thats cheap,or thats too expensive without knowing the background.Enlighten us a little and we can give you a more educated opinion.
 
The shop has had the car for nearly 3 years now. Sat untouched for 2 1/2 years and now they are working on it (at least for the last couple of weeks). I have also never priced blasting so was not sure what was good or bad.

The blaster is a mobile company that comes to his shop and does all the work. So no transport cost involved.
 
If its factory undercoat it may be a problem them trying to take it all off with blasting. You can use a propane torch and a puffy knife, it comes off like butter. I just had my car looked at by my good friend that owns a mobile blasting business. He told me straight out to get most of the coating off before he blasts my car or it could damage the metal because he will have to hit it hard with the nozzle to get all the coating off. He is doing my whole car complete for $500.00, in out and underneath.
 
If they do a good job that's a good price. Undercoating does not come off easy, even with a good sandblaster.
 
I think it's good price to avoid flaming balls of molten tar on your face and neck from burning it off with propane and a putty knife. I'm guessing they will still have to scrape most of off, because blasting off undercoating just melts it and doesn't work very well IMO.
 
a hot water/steam pressure washer will also remove it. I dont think the price is bad if the guy is 100% it will take it off.
 
Why remove the undercoating? Are you doing a full resto? I brought mine in & it cost me $1100 to plastic bead the outter shell & sand blast the inner trunk,engine bay,floors. I didn't want them to remove the original undercoating but they did it anyways. See my resto thread for pics of their work
 

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I don't think I would call it a full resto. However, everything that bolts on is coming off the car. Mainly because I wanted the bottom of the car body color. To me, a resto would be taking the car back to original. This car is going to be original color, but it ends there. The Duster was /6, bench seat, rubber floor mat, column shift. We are going to bucket seats, rallye dash, console shift, 8 3/4, disc brakes and 71 v24 paint scheme over original FJ5 color. Motor is still undecided. I have bought a 340, a 360 and a 440. However the 6.1 swap is looking more available now than it was when I started this project 3-4 years ago.
 
One of them green propane tanks from walmart and an afternoon with a scraper and the undercoating is gone...some say molten tar balls in your face I say don't git under them......wear gloves, long sleeve shirt and face protection,costed me 175.00 to do that amount of work after I scraped off the undercoating.took them 2 1/2hours from the time I dropped it odd till they called and said it was ready. when I got it back from the sandblaster I spent about 3 hours cleaning up the sand and a few missed spots and she was ready for primer.....if you don't wan't to do the work yourself then pay them to do it.....car buildin ain't easy...if it was everybody would be doin it....I'm in the club :)
 
Being that I live 350 miles from where the car is being painted. I really don't have the option to do it myself. So looks like I will be paying to have it done.
 
Why? What does 350 miles have to do with anything? You always have a choice. Do it or don't. :)
 
PoisonDart74 said:
Why? What does 350 miles have to do with anything? You always have a choice. Do it or don't. :)
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You are right... I do have a choice. I choose to live with my wife which is 350 miles from where the car is being painted!!! :) Plus I choose to let the shop do what they are in the business to do. I will stay here, 350 miles from where the work is being done! $600 is not exactly worth making the wife mad....lol Plus it is not worth the chance of having the shop say "it is because something was not done like we needed".
 
AdamR said:
I dont think the price is bad if the guy is 100% it will take it off.
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X2 I'm not sure media blasting of any type will effectively remove the undercoating. Might want to get some sort of agreement before work takes place limiting your out of pocket cost if it doesn't work.

I thinking soda blasting is more expensive than other media blasting. The one thing I like about it is it doesn't damage the metal as bad as sand does. The draw back to soda is it doesn't work as well on rusty metal. I have also read online there could be issues geting paint to stick after soda blasting, although I have never had any problems with misc small parts that I have done.
 
i done media blasting for a short time and i can tell you this. the media will remove the undercoating but it takes awhile and causes the panels to get hot, cause the undercoating doesnt come right off.and it could warp your panels staying in one spot trying to get it off. when we blasted we always steam cleaned the car 1st taking 90% of the undercoating off then blasted it as far as soda blasting i wouldnt recommend that either as it leaves a residue on it that needs to be washed off or your paint and body work will not stick right to the metal there are too may nooks and crannys on the under carrage that the soda material will still be left in hence lifting the paint materials and will start to rust im for the media blasting but make sure they steam clean it 1st showing pics during the steam cleaning process and blasting process seeing how you are 350 miles away and all
goodluck and hopefully this helps
 
I got all mine off blasting with my home unit, it's just slow. A commercial unit with high air flow would be faster. IMO warpage is a non issue in the engine bay and underside.
 
I think that is what my friend paid to get the undercarriage and engine bay done on mine. But my car had no undercoating. And they came to him. Local place here in WA. wanted close to 2k to do the entire car with soda.
Not to hijack, but I was in a local welding store the other day and they had a flier for dry ice blasting, wonder if it is a better process than soda blasting in regards to media being left behind etc......
 
I steam presaure cleaned my underside bare cause undercoat is almost impossible w sandblasting. After that I sandblasted it to bare metal inside, underside and engine bay. Lots of hours!! If you get a specific quote saying blasted to bare metal underside and engine bay for 600, that is a great deal. You better be 100% ready to put epoxy over that bare metal immediately. Good luck, it will be fantastic when body color underneath.
 
It took me roughly a week off and on to scrape every nook and cranny on my car to get all the undercoating off. That **** is nasty and a pain to get clean. I went through a tank and a half of propane and raw nuckles. Get it blasted if you can. I Linex the underside of mine just because its super durable. If you want to paint it body color and look clean, every little chunk and residue has to be gone. Good luck..... Have it blasted no question about it.
 
Slow with a home blaster but came out clean. I sprayed it with SPI epoxy.
 

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