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Removing interior padding only, not the tar


theczechone

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so i'm in the process of replacing my floors in the 72 and when I pulled the interior out and pulled off the old padding over the trans tunnel, lot of it remained stuck to the car. Any quick tips on how to get that off? I don't want to remove the sound deadening/tar. Thanks

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It is likely fused with the sound deadening material.  You can try getting a  very stiff-bristled wire brush and brushing it back and forth.  That may be enough to pull some of it up.  Are you going to recover it with new vinyl or something, or are you leaving it bare?

 

Only other thing that would likely work (and it is on the risky side) would be to take a torch and slowly/lightly singe the padding.  I have actually done this before.  You just lightly pass the torch over the material in small sections at a time and it will singe the fibers (kind of like if you get your hair to close to a candle).  The tar underneath takes a lot more to light off, so it should not affect it at all unless you held it there for too long.  You must be extremely careful doing it this way though.  I would have something handy to smother the flames in the event it caught, and I would definitely try to brush out the big patches and get as much of the padding material off with the brush first, then just use the torch to clean up the stray fibers.

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Yeah, if it isnt a whole lot, then singing the stray fibers off is quick and easy.  If the tar layer is rock hard, then a brush could help.  But if it is still fairly gooey, then a brush wont do you any good.  

 

Mine was pretty hard, so I was able to get most of the fiber out with a bit of brushing.  Then I just singed the strays off with a propane torch.  Didnt take much time at all, and the density of fibers was so thin that I didnt have to really worry about the stuff catching on fire.  Good to have a wet rag handy just in case though.

 

After that I did three layers of material (heat insulation, sound deadening, vinyl).  Works quite good and I made it so all three layers are removable as one piece.  Just have to remove the seats, center console, and door sill trim.

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If you still want to try to get the tar off, you can use the dry ice trick.  Grab a few blocks from the store and place them on top of the tar.  Then after a minute, move the ice and hit it with a hammer a few times.  The tar stuff will shatter right off the metal.

 

I used a foil-lined insulation wrap.  Pretty much heavy duty bubble-wrap with a foil layer on both sides.  It is very lightweight and inexpensive.  You can buy rolls of it at Lowes or Home Depot.  I think it cost me ~$35 for a roll big enough to do the entire floor of the car with quite a bit left over.  I then bonded some sound deadening material to it (a thick material with rubber lining on one side) and then added vinyl on top of that.  The end result was a 3 layer pad about 1/3 of an inch thick that was molded to the floor of the car.  Have had it in the car for a little over 2 years now, and I havnt had any issues at all yet.

post-44876-0-20234300-1491502526_thumb.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

I didnt glue it to the floor at all.  Once the three layers are glued together, you end up with a molded piece that fits the contours of the floor/trans tunnel very well.  I havnt had it shift at all in the 3-years since I did it.  The door trip panels that go along just inside the door do clamp over top of it, but even without those, the whole thing is nice and tight to the floor.  

 

It seems to do a very good job of keeping the heat out.  The only area I notice any heat come through is around the shifter (which is normal since that is only covered by the shift boot).  

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  • 4 weeks later...

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