Since I need to gain a grip of weight I am going to add a considerable amount of cage work among other things. Since I am going to strip the car down to the frame I though

Hey I've already spent a boat load why not repaint the car ?

Then it hit me. Why sand it down only to paint over the old shitty paint when you can have it dipped and resprayed from the ground up

1 problem

I have no idea of how this is done but I understand it has to be dipped

Where and how in So Cali would be good tidbits if you guys know

thx

 

Awe, man. I thought this thread was about acid dropping. I had my tabs all ready.

 

Do you guys have Hemmings Motor News out there? They generally have a bunch of adds for that stuff. If not, look for info on local vintage car restoration people. They dip cars all the time to get rid of years of repair stuff, and old paint and rust. Just make sure they don't leave it in too long, Hondas have much thinner metal than some of those old cars!

 

I looked into acid dipping a few years ago when I started buyilding my Prod CRX but I didn't do it for several reasons:

1) I was advised against it by someone who had it done to a Mazda with bad effect. His comment was that many modern Japanese cars have a number of glues and sealants that hold many of the panels together rather than than welds and bolts and that these would go away with acid dipping leaving the shell to be much less structurally sound. Not knowing where exactly to go back and redo or with what materials, he said he learned his lesson. On fully welded unibody cars or those with a true frame for structure, this is not or at least less of an issue. If the car had a huge cage tied in everywhere it would be much less of a deal.

2) When I finally found a place to dip the CRX, they wanted about $1,200 which was more than the budget would allow if I had gone past obstacle #1.

 

Technically, I think the stuff they soak the car in is alkali rather than acid but we did our last Golf shell for the rally car, before starting to prepare it. It didn't come out completely clean - there's a urethane goo that VW uses that is resistant to the stripper - but it made the shell a TON easier to work on. Understand that a primary step of the process was to seam-weld the tub, there were a bunch of pick-up points to the cage, and we reinforced all of the suspension points...

I can't tell you how much weight was saved by the dipping process but we do know that the unnecessary tabs and brackets that could be removed under Gr2 rules amounted to something like 15# as I recall. They were easier to cut off because they weren't gunky.

Lee's point is very interesting and is probably a serious consideration.

K

 

See Lee's number 1.
A local guy here dipped an ITA CRX project and the car started to fall apart. It then had to be seam welded which rendered it illegal for IT.
All that glue on the seams is actually holding the car together believe it or not. Dipping the car takes all of it off.

Also keep in mind that all wiring, bushings, EVERYTHING has to be removed from the tub before dipping. EVERYTHING!!!

 

Kirk added a good point... seam welding. This would add back a lot of structure that glue and sealant removal would take away. Unfortunately many classes (none that I have run) don't allow seam welding so the dipping process might be a step backward without it.

Again I do not have first hand knowledge of this, just going from what I was told by someone else on a a Mazda RX7.


Modified by CRX Lee at 5:43 PM 8/3/2003 Missed a critical word


Modified by CRX Lee at 5:44 PM 8/3/2003

 

fourtunately seam welding is part of what I am doing when I send the car in for more cage work. And in some areas I had planned to reglue before it gets repainted