Installment 4 - Sexify the chassis.
Okay, so I know I keep alluding to brackets to mount the sunroof, but you'll just have to wait on that. You will not be disappointed in this installment though, trust me. With the interior carpet and panels removed, I used a heat gun to remove the glued down sound deadening. Most people recommend using Dry Ice, but I didn't have the luxury of spending a whole weekend on knocking this out. The heat gun allowed me to remove manageable sections, about 30-45 minutes per day, when I had the chance. Applying about 20-30 seconds of heat to an area heated the adhesive up just enough to easily pry the section up using a 3 inch putty knife. Little by little, the entire chassis was exposed this way. What was exposed however, was a damn mess. The remaining adhesive combined with the joint sealer actually looked worse than when I started. At that point, I was "pot committed" (poker term, not a mary jane term!) to clean all that crap up to get down to the clean metal. To remove the remaining adhesive, I soaked a few wash cloths in Xylene and placed them over the appropriate areas; after about 10 minutes, the adhesive wipes right up. The first round works for a majority, but it takes a second hit with a clean towel/wash cloth to really clean it up. Some other areas had left over glue, so I hit those as well while I had the Xylene and equipment out. I was care- ful to avoid the wires with the solvent. With the glue out of the way, I was left with just the joint sealer. I wish I could say there was an easy way to remove this stuff, but there really isn't. I had been using a small straight-slot screwdriver to scrape and pry, but I thought there had to be a better way. I grabbed the spot bead blaster I bought to hit the grimey suspension parts and went to town in some of the harder to reach areas of floor pan. The only thing it did was make an even bigger mess. Okay, plan B. I grabbed a wire cup and a drill and went to town, again. This actually worked. The only problem being that it is very time consuming, scratched the hell out of some areas and just plain wouldn't reach in other areas. So, back to the trusty screwdriver for me. I found using a cross-hatch pattern with the small straight-slot and then scraping what remained off with the putty knife worked like gang busters on the flat stuff. The detail stuff required a special touch, and by that I mean alcohol. Patience and a screwdriver are the only tools needed there; though a wire brush or cup does help zip through the areas you can actually reach with them. All done! With that section anyway... With most of the sound deadening and joint sealer removed it came out to 5 grocery bags full of crap. In all it weighed ~25 lbs using my crappy bathroom scale. The pedal area on the driver's side is really tricky to contort around. I took the easy way out here and stopped at a seam in front of the gas pedal. Porsche decided they needed some stuff to glue on back here too...bastards. Here is a shot of the materials used in the making of this installment. No animals were hurt during the shooting of this project. I found this very odd. The B pillar on the drivers side had little spots of metal attached to the pillar, almost like an overspray of liquid metal that 'splashed' onto the panel and then hardened. It looked like crap, but thankfully the stuff scraped right off. And for the grand finale, here are the shots of the chassis all cleaned up! Next installment will cover the under-dash stuff and a thinning out of the wiring harness.
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