Restoring the underside of your classic car is not an easy task. It’s more difficult if you have to lay on your back under the car to do it. An automotive rotisserie or a wooden tip over jig will make the job easier. Once you determine if you are going to flip your car or not, it’s time to get started. The process of restoring the underside of a Camaro will be similar whether or not you decide to flip the car.
Begin by cleaning up welds that may remain after installing floor pans, transmission tunnels, etc. For this I like to use a 40 grit flap disc on a 4.5″ angle grinder to take down most of the weld. If the 40 grit flap disc is too large, I’ll use a 3″ cut off wheel on a die grinder, 2″ 40 grit flap disc on an angled die grinder, or double cut burrs on a die grinder.
Next use a product like Eastwood’s internal frame coating and spray the inner frame rails and supports using a flexible hose with a 360 degree spray head. Hit all of the hard to reach places with this.
Then begin stripping the paint/primer. I like to use a 40 grit flap disc on a 4.5″ angle grinder to quickly remove the paint. Be careful to only remove the paint. If you see sparks, move on. Once you remove what you can with the angle grinder then you can circle back with a Black Hawk Strip Disc or a 2″ sanding or conditioning disc to remove the paint left behind. You can use a hand held sand blaster to remove the left over paint from the corners. Set up some plastic sheeting to keep the blast media contained.
Finally wipe the metal down with pre painting prep until there is no more dirt to be found on the shop towels. This might take 4 to 5 cleanings to get a super clean surface. Then spray the car with a high quality epoxy primer.
