First remove your backseat: Click Here.

Second remove your carpet: Click Here.

Tools Required: Dry Ice, Scraping tools (chisels, sturdy putty knifes), Gloves, Adhesive remover, Knee Pad(s), Sand paper, Hammer, Dust/paint mask, And tons of elbow grease!


Total Time: ~ 20 Hours.

BEFORE PICS:








STEP 1: Buy dry ice, I bought 30lbs. b/c I did it in the afternoon in 70+ degree temp. so it melted quite quickly. I recommend you wait to do this at night so the ice will last longer. Then break the ice up into smaller manageable pieces/chunks.


Break dat ice up!


STEP 2: Apply broken up dry ice chunks on top of the tar pieces in the car. Spread the ice around and I recommend placing a lot of chunks around the edges of the tar pieces. If the chunks are too big, just bash it with a hammer.



Break dat ice up!


STEP 3: Wait about 15-20 minutes, or until the pieces of tar turns whitish and starts to crack. Then use your scraping tool(s) to lift up the tar from the floorboards. If the tar is still sticking to the floorboards, let the ice sit longer on it.




Be sure to put dry ice on the tar pieces behind the firewall mat.

Be sure to also place ice behind the center lower console.


STEP 4: After you remove the big patches of tar, you will be left with a lot of tar residue and little chunks that are stuck to the floorboards. Use some adhesive remover to dissolve the smaller pieces of tar off of the floorboards.



I recommend using 3M General Purpose Adhesive Cleaner.

Now is a good time to put on a dust/paint mask, and apply the cleaner chemicals to a rag.

Start scrubbing!


STEP 5: Now this step is optional, but I think it will make your car a whole lot cleaner looking.

You may have noticed that there is an off-whitish colored caulking material that is generously pasted around the edges of all the floorboard seams, and around the circular metal domes in the floorboards. This stuff is extremely time consuming to remove.

The Adhesive Remover I used wouldn't dissolve it. So I had to use my trusty putty knife and a crap load of patience to scrap it away. I also tried using my hairdryer to heat it up. This made removing the caulking a lot easier, but the overall process went slower b/c I had to wait for the caulking to heat up. So I just scraped it off using a scraper and some sandpaper.




AFTER PICS:



The dark silver patches, is actually where I sanded the caulking down to the metal.














WEIGHT SAVINGS:

Tar:


Weight: ~ 10 lbs.

Firewall mat: ~ 50% removed.



Weight: ~ 5 lbs.


TOTAL WEIGHT SAVINGS: : ~ 50% Firewall mat + Tar = ~ 15 lbs.

Conclusion: Yes i know most of you will think spending this much time to save only 15 lbs. isn't worth it, but i had nothing better to do, and i like working on my car, so... TO EACH HIS OWN!!!

If you have any questions feel free to PM me.

 

Damn, you have been busy. Props for the write ups!

 

looks pretty good and lots of work but i'll be sure to come back here for the infoe b4 i start stripping out my eg

nice work

 

GUTTED !!

oh yeah, and VX PRIDE !!!

 

very very nice man. thanx for the great info. i wasnt ganna do it cuz i heard it was more trouble than its worth.. but you proved me wrong... and its clean

 

Very informative post. I wanna do this to my car very soon but i wanna spray it all milano red after it is striped. I would like to know where you can get dry ice at and how exspensive it was. Thats the only thing keeping me from diving in is that i dont know where to get dry ice. Oh nice pics also. How much you charge to come do mine. ???? Looks like you did some nice work.

 

Great write up ! thx

 

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by AWD 18T &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Great write up ! </TD></TR></TABLE>

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jDmDxTuRd &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Very informative post. I wanna do this to my car very soon but i wanna spray it all milano red after it is striped. I would like to know where you can get dry ice at and how exspensive it was. Thats the only thing keeping me from diving in is that i dont know where to get dry ice. Oh nice pics also. How much you charge to come do mine. ???? Looks like you did some nice work. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I went to Beverages and More, but they didn't sell any dry ice, so they refered me to a small liquor store, 5 miles away. And amazingly that is the only store in my area that sells dry ice. The ice cost me a dollar a pound.

 

damn you've been a busy little bastid...

props for yet another badass writeup which will serve the future HT search archives well

 

i love your posts.. i never expect it but at the end theres tha damn weight savings scale LOL

 

man that is some helpful info. thanx bro.

 

Wow, that is an awesome how to!

 

ooooweee that's a lot of work! Good job though

 

wow it's so clean!!!

great job, are you going to paint your stripped interior a single color???
or leave it 2 tone?

 

good post.

 

saved to the archives

 

Damn. very informative post!

 

wow..this gotta be a coinsidence..(sp)

im currently stripping all the sound deadening crap on my car too...
i jus did it the hard way and start scraping it wid a very sharp gasket scraper
i used brake cleaner to take off the small residue stuff...

well im almost done with mine..all i gotta do now is the floor in the front

dam i tried using a heat gun too...but not dry ice

btw...thanx alot for showing me how much weight i scrapped off...gives me all the motivation...

good job tho..

 

hooooollly sh*t...

very nice and clean...where in nor cal did you get the dry ice?

peace

 

Great write-up again man! And like I have told people in other posts, that one weight reduction might not be much but when you add it all up, it gets better and better. So far you have pulled out exactly 49 lbs. which is better than the weight savings of a CF hood and also one hell of alot cheaper!

Are you going to do a write-up on how much the door panels and all of the stock plastic weighs in the future??

 

Looks good.

Excellent write-up. I have gotten it down to removing almost 99% of the tar in my '99 Prelude (which is ~20lbs). But the putty has been a real PITA. I guess I'll now try a heatgun and putty knife. Thanks.

 

Great write up bro......looks good!!!

But correct me if I'm wrong, your car is a VX (hence the name)?? I thought the VX had very lil "tar" in it to save weight....I know I don't have any in the back of the hatch........just fyi.....and I'm confused also..haha

 

thanks for the how to