The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop road tar buildup under fenders

Hi, guys!
I've finally got both fenders off my truck. When I flipped them over, I discovered that they are CAKED in that road tar and sand stuff that streets are resealed with. Is there a magical way to get that stuff off? Do I need to take it off? It seems to be a good sealer on the metal, as the little bit I've managed to get off (with a great deal of effort)has brand spanking new paint underneath it. I'm wondering if the scratches I'll cause taking it off are worth the bare metal I'll have when I'm finished.
Thanks for all of your help... again!

I say leave it on. After i painted my fenders, I had to put something on the back so they wouldn't rust and had some sound deadining properties. Home depot has a cheap tar sealer in gallon cans for appliation on the outside of basement walls prior to backfilling. I got some of this stuff, heat it up in the sun, and painted it on the inside of the fenders. Leave the fenders outside in the sun for a week or so and it will harden up. Now that it's cured its the perfect undercoat. Same as what you already have -

I used to know people who would drive up and down freshly tarred roads, just to get a free undercoating. If it's that tough to get off and has shiny new paint under it,....

For getting the tar off, beings I had that problem and some places that tar build up was 1/2 thick I used a stiff putty knife and rounded the corners so it would not dig into the metal because the contour is not flat in most places.
It was not a fun job but no amount of chemical is going to dissolve that much tar, short of sticking the whole part in a bathtub of it.
Dan

There is two things you can do to get the road tar off. 1. Is use some WD-40 and let it soak for a while then add a little more it makes the tar kinda brittle and you can scrape ir off with a putty knife. 2. The other thing you can do and will not warp the metal is have a powder coater use their heater that heats up the metal slowly and cools it down slowly. This process takes 24hrs hours to do. Then go pick them up and paint them right away or I used this process on my inter fender panels and then instead of painting them I had them powder coated. No warp problems at all. Make sure the P.coater has the right tools to do this job so zero warping will happen.
62Blue
Don

I used the rounded putty nife and mineral spirits. brush it on let it sit a while and start scraping. I finished with a 3m blue striping pad and mineral spirts then a rag to wipe clean.