Monthly Archives: June 2011

Cleaning Under The Front Gas Tank And Spare Tire Area – Steel Wheel Brush & MasterCoat Metal Prep – 1966 VW Beetle Project

I decided to clean under the front spare tire and gas tank area.  It wasn’t as filthy as the rear luggage shelf area, but it certainly needed to be done.  You’ll see there was a good amount of surface rust too.  Here are some pics from the process:

 

Here are the “Before” images…

 

Cleaning With The MasterCoat Metal Prep (while wet).  You can really see the surface rust when it’s wet:

 

Here are the “After” pictures (much better)…

Cleaning Under The Rear Luggage Shelf – Round 3 – Steel Wheel Brush & MasterCoat Metal Prep – 1966 VW Beetle Project

Wow, it’s starting to look great.  Today I started with a steel wheel brush on my electric drill to start removing the surface rust that was present.  Once I was done with that, I used MasterCoat Metal Prep to remove the remaining surface rust.  You’ll definitely want to wear rubber gloves, eye protection, and a safety odor mask for this job.  Here are some pics:

 

Right after I used the steel wheel brush (below)

 

Driver side Metal Prep completed (below)

 

Both sides done with Metal Prep (below).  Squeeky clean!  NICE!  🙂

 

Here’s what I used to do the Metal Prep work (below)

Cleaning Under The Rear Luggage Shelf – Round 2 – Needle Scaler – 1966 VW Beetle Project

Ok, we’re getting closer.  I spent some time with the needle scaler today and got the rest of the undercoating (among other things) off the bottom of the luggage shelf.  It’s starting to look nice and clean under there.   🙂  The other day I pulled some plastic shielding and really thin aluminum wrap off of the heater tubes (you can see them installed in the pictures of my previous post).  I took a picture of them today.  I’m thinking these were original to the car, but I don’t think they can be purchased anymore (I may be wrong though).  It seems most people take then off anyway.    Mine were very brittle, damaged, and pretty much crumbled in my hand.  I removed them too.  I’m guessing they were used for insulation?