The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Now what?

Here's my situation:
Down to the chassis, engine and tranny are out. What now?
Sandblast, then powdercoat.
Steam clean? Powerwash? Sand?
I have no idea what is the best method for cleaning the chassis?

I haven't removed any of the brake lines as of yet, is that even necessary? HELP!!! Thanks!

I did a combo of wire wheel and sandblasting.
Looking back I should have just scraped off all of the heavy grease and dirt and then sandblasted. It is darn messy though.

If you do not want to spend the money on your own sandblaster a wire wheel and a cheap drill will do.

PJ, I did the sand blasting on my frame. You can see what I started with and finished with in the site below. I used a $80 pressure pot from Harbor Freight. It worked great but you have to have another project going so you can let your air compressor build up once and a while. I wood sand blast for a few minutes then jump on to something else then back to sand blasting.
Good luck.

PJ:

With the adequate sized compressor, for example a two-stage that can sustain approximately 12cfm/90psi, a rented or purchased pot-stlye sand blaster will do a superior job on your chassis. Recovering your blast media, sifting and reusing with cut down on the amount of media required. Preparation is a key element, as well due to the blast media finding its way into every conceiveable void. Anything that is blasted with need to be disassembled and throughly cleaned to ensure all the media is removed prior to prep, assembly and finishing.

The down-and-dirty method (scraper, wire brush, degreaser, drill, elbow grease and liberal amounts of water) will get the job done wiht very good results, as well. I have done both and if your budget allows, I would opt for the blast route. I think overall it gives a better result. Best of luck with your project.

Kevin,
That chassis is beautiful. That's encouraging to...mine looks like yours did. Did you not powdercoat it before you painted?

PJ, Thanks. Once the sand blasting was done I epoxy primered the frame then shot it with an inexpensive black paint I got at my local paint store.
Tony is correct, you can recover the sand and then strain it with a 1/8" screen. Otherwise you will be buying a lot of sand.
Good luck!

If you are looking for a service provider for about anything, including sand blasting services, go to "google.local.com". The screen will prompt you to enter what service you are looking for and the area you are looking in. Viola, the search results will tell you of all the companies in the radius area you specified that perform the service you are looking for. I did it this morning and found a company that specializes in media blasting antique and restoration vehicles. They use baking soda, corn cobs, walnut shells, glass bead, sand, dry ice and a number of other media ideal for the item you are having blasted.

Good luck with finding a blaster in your area.