I got spooked today removing original interior. Does anyone know if 55 f100 had Asbestos on the firewall behind the heater? I washed my hands up after exiting quickly lol. Here is an image.
Probably not, asbestos was used more for extreme temps like between exhaust manifolds/starters on Chevrolets. LOL
The only reported use of Asbestos under the Ford Motor Company banner was,,Brake Linings (1909-????) (1980, 1st warning) and Clutch Linings (1909-????) (1980, 1st warning). The material used on the firewalls was a fibered cardboard that was impregnated with oil from what I have read. HRP
You must be under 30 years of age and have been taught all the EXTREME notions about the dangers all around us. There may be some serious ill effects from prolonged exposure to asbestos, but if everybody who had casual or temporary exposure to it was going to die FROM it we'd actually have evidence of that, and I submit we do not. It seems to take long term exposure to do the serious damage. All that said, it not healthy to breathe in any fibrous materials or dust particles if it can reasonably be avoided. Wearing a small filter mask should be sufficient in dealing with your truck's firewall liner. Ray
Back in the 70's whenever we did a brake job we took the air blower and blew off the backing plates loaded with asbestos dust (with no mask),I smoked (quit 27 years ago) and I am still here.I am not advocating either one and with today's information, you would be a fool to breathe it in, but a lot of that stuff made a lot of lawyers rich.I am sure some people may have become sick from it, but I did a lot of brake jobs.
No asbestos in the firewall liner, but you are right to have a healthy respect for asbestos. When I was a pastor in Baltimore I knew a lot of old guys who used to work at Bethlehem Steel shipyards who were dying of asbestosis. I conducted many of their funerals. One guy told me he'd been in asbestos dust blowing around so much it looked like a snowstorm, not so much as a face mask. Everything we know today about dangers of asbestos was known in 1930 but kept from the public. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
I used to have a roll of asbestos cloth. I used it for all kinds of stuff. Mostly as muffler packing on my harleys. I knew enough not to breath the dust and would wet it down before cutting it. If the EPA or the FDA knew all the stuff I had done in my past they would be sitting on my front lawn watching me.
Wet the material with a hand-held spray bottle before you remove it. As others have stated, the dust/airborne fibers are the problem.
You should really research first and then type. Asbestos kills plain and simple,dust masks do nothing to protect you from the fibres and short term exposure has been proven to have long term health effects and even death. In this case I wouldn't be concerned because as HRP pointed out it wasn't used in this case but a disregard or lack of respect of asbestos or any dust can be dangerous and should be avoided. (35+ years involved with asbestos and many other hazardous materials)
What I was gonna say! The critter residue that can be found in old cars worries me more than other random dust and such. I'd imagine some sort of dust mask should be considered safety whenever ripping apart interiors. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
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