first of, this is a huge ordeal. it takes time, pacience and dertermination (well basicly if you have A.D.D this isnt for you). the results is definatly not worth the energy put into the project. the tar it self may weight a total of 2-3 pounds MAX. this is my estimated amount by judging how much is removed and how much is left to remove. want to lose 2-3lbs? get a hair cut and **** before you get in your car. anyhow here we go:

1: remove seats. drivers and passangers as well as rear but who really has a full interrior anyway...

2: remove plastic trim around e-break. on the 88std it has a plastic cover for the 2 screws in the front of the break. pop it off w/ a flat head screw driver. the 2 screws will definatly be stuck the **** on there. buy "screw out" from sears.... one you realize that all it does it make a golf tee looking thing because you used a 14K rpm drill, proceede to drill the ******* out.

3: unbolt fron seatbelts from car. just the bottom portions that are located ontop of carpet. 17mm ratched works nicely.

4: the carpet is velcroed, snapped and stapled in variouse different locations. on the door sill its stapled into a blue plastic strip which is clipped onto the door sill it self. to remove pull off the plastic door sill cover. comes off w/ a flat head screw driver. by the back seats its snapped in. they usually break unless you pull the carpet from the snap to begine with. not the snap from the car (cause then it'll break). foot wells have snapps and velcro. i had to cut a line down the carpet behind my stereo console area to get it around all of that.

5: pull carpet out. slide over e-break and shifter. and get it out of the car.

6: nows your chance to actually clean all the crap out thats been piling up under your carpet.. snicker wrappers, loose change used condoms... etc. vacume all that **** out and whipe off the bare metal. i like windex. great cleaner dries fast. doesnt **** up paint as far as i have noticed. no clear coat on floor so dont worry.

7: after everything is out and floor is clean you will see 2 main patches of tar for the 2 front seats. patch seat bracket and another patch. if you see any that is peeling off already by all means pull it out. if you see this your lucky as hell.

8: i have heard of different ways to get this crap out. Liquid nitrogen will work great. freezes the glue that holds the tar on. (the tar it self will easily pull off if it wasnt for the glue they used to stick it on there). once frozen hit it with a hammer to crack the glue from the floor. pull away chunks.

8b: some people dont have liquid nitrogen. so. if its could out in winter, 20 or so, leave your doors open and have car sit out side for a while so it freezes. hit tar w/ hammer to break up glue. pull off. this is a trick king motorsports commonly uses in winter time.

8c: so you live in hawaii where its awesome all the time. 1 **** you 2 there are a few more ways to get this stuff out of here. i have heard that pouring coolant over tar will help to break it up. this works sort of. i tried this on a portion and wound up chissleing the **** out w/ a hammer and screw driver. another thing you can try that is a bit more effective but still halfe assed. that airplane striper stuff you use for paint. about $4 a can at auto parts store. spray on tar and watch it buble up. scrape away. i doubt it will be able to penetrate to the glue on 1 coat. sure didnt for me. but if you have a ton of the stuff around try it. dont breathe the fumes at all. dont dont dont.

8d: those ways all make a mess what else... heat gun. i didnt try this it will work tho. it will create a mess as well. tar melts when hot (duh). you scrape off and it gets every where and starts to stick when hot. i didnt try this for 1 reason:

8e: why use a heat gun when you can use a

 

I'm telling you, it doesn't have to be that difficult.

Did you TRY dry ice?

and the tar weighs quite a bit more than just 2-3 lbs. In all, I would say ~15 lbs.

 

where can you buy dry ice?

 

and how much do you need?
for like a square foot, how much do you need, and how do you do it?

 

Much easier way. Seems to me it's easier to get off when you freeze it, from my experience. Get a fire extinguisher (easy to get) and have it filled (or it might come filled) with CO2 and spray all the tar, freezes to -110 degrees F, plenty cold. Hit it with a hammer and off it comes in sheets. That's the easiest way i know of. That's what we did for my friends 86 CRX. There was a lot of tar, I would say more than 2-3lbs. I didn't think it was that bad, probably took 2-3 hours with 2 people and I would just guess 10-15 lbs, conservatively. And it looks a lot better! Hope that helps.

s


[Modified by stevel, 6:39 AM 5/10/2002]

 

is it me or do gutted cars just look badass!

 

gutted cars look badass!!!

 

compressed co2 works good at freezing stuff....most every place that has soda fountains use it like the pizza shop i work at....there is about 1 lb of that **** in a std really no use in doin it i dont think my car even has one lb...where u had it on the ps i dont remember having it...good job

 

what do they put that **** in there for anyway?

 

ok, I just finished posting a bunch of stuff on this topic over in this thread:
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=180821

You get dry ice by looking up "Dry Ice" in the yellow pages. It's really cheap. I used 2 lbs for the entire car, and that was more than enough. The two lbs cost <$10.

But it's up to you guys, Would you rather use dry ice, get the job done in a few minutes, and have your floorboard look like this when you're done:


Or would you rather spend a ton of time ******* around with a torch, possibly burning a bunch of other stuff in your car, and end up with a floorboard that looks like this:


I probably took out all the tar from my car using dry ice in the time it took to this guy to torch out his passenger floorboard.

 

Its just you.

 

I've never ever been a fan of gutting.

 

function over comfort...thats how i feel...

a gutted interior looks good if you repaint the interior and clear coat it...which is exactly what i need to do...should i use a stiff wire wheel to get the left over crap off?...

 

well dry ice wasnt an option. it'll clean up even more once everything is scraped out. STD's do not have 10-15lbs or tar. like jdmb18hatch said its mabey 1 lb. and it is not really worth it.

see my disclaimers about using the tortch sure you can **** **** up... if you **** **** up. so dont do it. that easy

i prefer function over fashion. my opinion. need as little weight as possible when running 1.5L's.


[Modified by TorteX, 3:15 PM 5/10/2002]

 

My CRX is a STD and maybe ~15lbs is a little high, it probably was closer to 10lbs. But it was MUCH more than just 1 lb.

 

When I stripped mine in the hatch we had 3 guys and a couple cases of beer. It was pretty easy just turn up the radio grap a cold one and a hammer and knock it off. I didnt even have to freeze it. With 3 of us it took about 45 min.

 

no ur crx is not a std by std we mean the base model civic that came with no options cant even get an auto trans just a 4 spd with no nothing just a car with a motor

 

yeah it doesnt have 10 lbs. I dont even think my Si's got 10 lbs.

 

hey martini



hahah j/k just wanted to use the pic

 

When I did my EF si Hb, it took about 4hrs on a cold day with a paint scraper. I shaved 11lbs.

This time, I used dry ice, rubbing alcohol, and an air chisel. Result...done in 1.5 hrs, and shaved 25lbs. This time it was in my 00cx Hb.
This was all bagged up and weighed on a digital scale.

 

Like I mentioned in another thread, I got 12ish lbs out of my 88 CRX Si. I basically did it only because the interior was going to get painted, and I needed bare floor for the cage install and welding.

 

Yep. Cage goes in this week and then it is off to get the inside and outside painted.

 

I lost about 20 #'s on my x/19 (scca) by scraping the undercoating all off. Talk about time consuming

 

Is there a good reason to torture yourself with this project--YES it makes putting in a roll cage a lot simpler. Second you get to check for water damage and clean the surface completely. The next benefit is a repaint of the interior as the olive drab or whatever it is cannot be matched. I used a chisel edged 1.5" putty knife and hammer for much of mine. I'll never do the Adhesive Remover product again. I also used concentrated Goof Off after getting the chunks of tar off-just let it soak for a while and then scrape some more. Would Dry Ice be better-maybe. I also used PPG Acryli Clean (Prep Sol type product) as a final cleaner. BTW: No torch required-I've tried that in the past and still find the cold methods are much better.
A real good reason to do this project is that it gives you the chance to refinish using Rust Oleum Primer and color coats. My car came from North Carolina and is free of any damage-but there was water in places I least expected it during this job.
Yes, I know that CRX's have a leak problem and that too is a good reason for taking the time to go over the interior completely. How much weight do you take out-I am not sure. I'm still working to get the firewall insulation pad completely off, without removing the dash.



[Modified by jc836, 6:55 AM 5/11/2002]

 

that is tough to do even with the dash out. And it doesn't weigh nearly as much as the tar..