Who among us has ever dipped a Teener? My project looks in prett good shape but I am scared of what I would get (or not get) back.

I have dealt with two dipped cars up close and personal. The dipping isn't going to remove anything that isn't already pretty much gone. The biggest issue is removing the heater tubes. Also, get ready for a big paint quote. Once it's dipped you need to prep and paint every surface. I would budget $8 - $10k for a dipped chassis for a nice paint job. Painting the interior/trunks/underside/engine bay is WAY more work than painting the outside.

Hi Chris

Did you see this about Kelley's car?

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?showtopic=69365

I don't know if you have seen his car but it looks great. One of the big problems is the remaining acid that may linger inside seams. It looks like these guys have something different. Not exactly in the neighborhood but it may be worth while.

There are 2 kinds of full car immersion tank stripping that I know of.

And they both can work very well. Just depends on who does it and what equipment they have.

1: Hot tank, This is caustic soda and Hot water. It will remove ALL of the rust where ever it is on the car. Will also remove paint. Will melt most non ferrous metals on cantact. (eats a beer can in one hour or less)

After dipping. Metal is dipped in a neutralizing tank. (If they have one)
Then sprayed off with a water blaster.

Then dipped in a Zinc phosphate tank to stabilize the metal and to keep surface rust to a minimum. (If they have one) The zink floats on the top of the water. When they pull out the chassis. A fine coating is now on the entire chassis. (or you can opt out of that and get it primed FAST)

DOWNSIDE IS: Caustic soda might be sitting in every crevice and hidden part of the chassis. As it is dam hard to rinse and neutralize all of it.
If it does come back (especially when wet) The paint will peel up wherever it is exposed to the caustic soda.

COLD TANK STRIPPING: This is just about like hot tanking. Except they use a Methylene Chloride based stripping solution at room temp. Like what you might get at home depot for paint stripping. Just stronger.
They also at times will add MEK to the mix to add strength to the solution.

DOWN SIDE: The stripper they use for cold tank stripping also has wax in it. The wax floats on the top of the solution to keep the aromatic solvents from evaporating off. This saves money. And keeps the solution strong for a greater length of time. Now how do you get the wax out of the longs and out of all the little crevices? And why would you? well. the solvents can get stuck under the wax and stay alive for months. especially in the sems if all of the seam sealer has been removed. This can come back to haunt you if you are getting a paint job immediately after a tank strip.

I use a pressure washer and REAL TSP (Tr-Sodium Phosphate) Mixed with laundry detergent to remove the wax and all the little crap that is still hanging on the metal. And I spray the hell out of it.

I know that chemical stripping is a great way to get the job done. it just needs to be done right. the above information doesn't come from books.
It comes from years of my experience doing exactly this kind of work.

I don't know much. But I do know if ya get it done. Check out their shop first. And ask em the right questions.

Cheers,

Clayton

If you don't want to dip the car I met a guy (and almost bought his project car) whose 914 had been through some kind of acid spray wash. I'd never heard of it before and am not quite sure how it works, but he described it almost like sandblasting . . . except with acid to eat everything.

This meant that he was able to leave stuff like the dashboard in, and not worry about the heater tubes. You still have to worry about the wax and seepage that Clayton was talking about with this method too.

The method from the guys in the link from Kelly uses an electrolytic setup. I don't know what it is exactly. I have only seen what they offer on their web site. I do know that Sodium carbonate can be used to remove rust in an electrolytic tank. This may be what they use. I suggest you ask Kelly or those guys that do the dipping. The method I mentioned doesn't have the harmful effects of acid etc. Acid also leads to Hydrogen embrittlement. These guys claim their process does not.

I had my tub dipped by the electrolytic method also.
http://phoenixhobbies.com/html/chassis.html
It cleaned up very good and made it a pleasure to work on (no rust to deal with - only holes to patch). After it was dipped it was rotated many-many times so if there was any liquid that may have been left it drained out. The coating they covered the car with after dipping prevented flash-over surface rust and as long as you didn't remove it it stayed good for the entire time I spent fixing the sheet metal. If I were doing another car I would do it again, no compaints or regrets.


Paul

Paul, Where did you get it done and what was the cost?

(I think these pictures are too big, but I've spent enough time putting this thing together, so here we go!)

I used a hybrid approach. I had the doors, engine lid, headlight covers and blinds dipped. These were easy to get primer into the cracks and crevices, because you could rotate them every which way and slosh the primer around.

I went to Redi-Strip. They have franchises in a handful of places around the country. They advertise in Hemmings. They do the dipping in their caustic hot tub, followed by neutralizer, followed by some kind of phosphate (zinc?) dip that will buy you a few days to get it primed. They had a '64 1/2 mustang convert in the bath. It was hanging by chains, and the brew was bubbling. Reminded me of several Vincent Price movies I saw when was a kid.

The dipping AND the blasting of the trunk lids was all less than $400.

They also do blasting, anything from a small part up to a whole car. They were blasting a whole 1969 Dodge Dart when I was there. Can you believe that?

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I had the two trunk lids blasted. Originally, I was going to dip them as well, but I talked myself out of it because of the areas in the channels that I doubted I could clean thoroughly or repaint thoroughly.

The rest of the upper exterior body, namely the fenders, I hand sanded. Not much sheet metal to sand when the other stuff is off.
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Interior of the trunks, hellhole, etc were different. The car was Ziebarted back in '79, so all I really needed to do was soak that stuff off. What a mess, but underneath was like-new white sheet metal (original color). Some light sanding finished it up.....

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All I did to the underside was clean and re-undercoat. My car had rust on one jack point, and some surface rust under the battery.

Not the case with a lot of 914s, but the point I'm making is that you don't have to do the whole car using one set approach.....

Good luck! Better you than me! Lots of work.

Are these methods better than media blasting? It seems to me that the dry blasting will not leave residual acid in seams, etc., though I know that any residual media seems to drain out for quite a while. Someone needs to invent a rotary shaker like the paint stores have for mixing paint!
The costs are certainly something that always need to be considered as well, but the next car I redo will definately be stripped to the bare shell, it does make things so much easier in the long run.

Expect Fahrvernnugen!

We had just had a 930 tub stripped by Redi-Strip in Allentown, Pa. I think it was $1000 for the tub....it came out beautiful clean and ready for sparks to fly

After we get the cage in, I found a local powder coat shop that will coat the tub for $1200.

so for $2200 we are going to have a spotless white powdercoated 930 tub

It's by FAR the easiest way to strip a car to bare metal and get ALL the rust removed at the same time.

She's a beaut!

so what now?

Dipping + blasting = no rust and paintable surface?

No, just dipping. After dipping, no blasting required.

After dipping, bodywork/chassis reinforcement begins. (some reinforcement was done prior to dipping to insure that something of value was pulled from the dip tank)

The car is still in process and will recieve a set of flares and will become a track dedicated car.

This is the worst of 2 bare tubs I have.

Chris,

My 6 is currently on a rotisserie. I asked my body shop which method to use; they said media blast only because they wouldn't guarantee any paint over a dipped car. Mainly because of residue.

They suggested blasting with aluminum oxide. They claim it's kinder than sand blasting, because there's less heat, therefore less chance of panel warping. I found a shop in SoCal., they kept my chassis for 6 weeks and charged me $650. Then it was immediately covered with etch-primer.

Another benefit was they were able to leave the original seam sealer and undercoating intact, only removing the paint and primer off those areas. BTW, my chassis had no rust so I didn't have that issue to deal with.

Best of luck,

Eddie

The car John has pictures of was dipped at a company in a burb west of Chicago. They did the body and the doors and the hoods. Look in the yellow pages. They were doing several cars including a Dusenberg.

You will have to clean it before putting on self etching primer. We used rattle can stuff from Eastwood.

The negative thing about blasting is that they leave media in all of the cavities (such as the longs) and seams. And the media cannot get rust of all of the spot welded seams, nor will it take off all of the body caulk.

I would do it again.

I saw the ultimate solution just last night in a thread on here.

The folks up in Minnesota should feel free to help fill in my blanks. There is a shop up there that offers dip stripping with an electrolysis method of removing all the rust from the chassis.

Redoing the teener

Precision Restoration


After dipping, they offer immersion e-coat of the entire chassis and curing of the e-coat. This, in my opinion, would be the ultimate refinishing solution.

The thread was the one where the owner of an awesome looking dark blue metallic 914 will be having his body shop refinish his car at no cost. (I learned something new from that thread {and the links he posted in the thread})

I believe the ultimate would be for that shop to actually do the steelwork on the car. They offer it, but I am guessing it is VERY expensive. They could get all the steelwork done on the car, re-dip the car and at the very end, e-coat the car. You would end up with a virtually new chassis freshly e-coated.

Precision Restoration (E-Coating)

just my $0.02

You can go all the way to about 18K for such a paint job speaking from experience...
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That is just sick...

Thanks...!!!!!

Clayton

Mine was not even acid dipped but every surface was painted... Here is how it started :

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porsche's are not investments....

they are an expense.

Rick,
I had it dipped many years ago at a place called International Metal Strippers, they were in White Bear Lake. I thing they are no longer around but when I did mine it was about $900.00.

Paul

Chicago:

The company I used is Redi-Strip. Located at:

100 Central Avenue in Roselle, IL (west of I-355) and north of North Avenue.

Phone number is 630-529-2442

They are nice folks. I think they are open on Saturday mornings.

They do a lot of classic cars. Had a Dusenberg in the shop when I was last there.

Good Luck.