Technical Advice on removing glued-on upholstery from steel?

Howdy and thanks for letting me participate. This is post #1 for me. I've got a '40 Ford with garnish moldings that someone glued tweedy/burlappy upholstery fabric to. Looks odd, especially running across the top of the dash. Any ideas on removing the fabric once the moldings are out of the car? A propane torch or some type of solvent bath are about the only things I've come up with. Thanks!

 

Start yanking on it, once the moldings are off the fabric should wrap around. Get as much off as you can, s****e it, DA and sand to bare metal, degrease and prime.

Might try some different solvents, acetone, laquer thinner to see if the glue will soften.

 

Welcome! Seen a car detailer use Berryman B12 pour in carb cleaner can #0116. On dried adhesive , worked fast bubbled, fizzed, dried in seconds & brushed off instantly & on an enamel painted surface at that. I was waiting for it to melt his paint. I'm sure there are many home remedies, I use DuPont prepsol I think #3901S let it soak and no damage to surfaces safe stuff for finishes too. Garnish trim should be no problem with either. Good luck sir! Flux

 

Usually any solvent will just make the glue gum up. Pull the cloth off and then try the water base paint thinner, I had a glue gun that was totally dried inside and that stuff took it out clean. I have been at this for 50 years.

 

I made the mistake of putting that **** all over the metal interior parts in my 37 Chevy p/u and will have to be doing this soon,what was I thinking and just because that stuff was cheap does not mean it should be used.

 

Peel that **** off then sandblast. HRP

 

My uncle use to remove overspray with gasoline when doing upholstery jobs. Don't know how it would do on old dried glue though

I do know that if the paint under is not cartelized(?) it might take some of the paint off too. Lesson learned the hard way. Lol

 

how about a heat gun?

 

Yeah! I like the heat gun idea best. I'll give it a try and move on to chemicals for the residue if and when the fabric comes off. Thanks!

 

I have used a product Called "Goof Off " for removing very sticky stuff and more. There is a professional grade for heavy duty projects.

 

Flash burn it with a torch ,let it cool and putty knife it of

 

I sell mek to a industrial account to get glue off, but mek will soften the paint underneath.

 

Surely you're not interested in saving what's below it, right? Lots of good suggestions above and the heat gun may or may not help. Depends on the glue used. MEK will work on the glue too but some serious skin protection is in order. "These cars aren't worth a broken fingernail" is what I tell my crew in regard to safe handling, and getting poisoned through your skin is no joke. Good luck, but I'd also like to say PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN... That means give us some photo coverage of the job and results. You won't be the 1st who needs to do this, surely not the last either.

 

Heat gun followed by this
http://googone.com/Home.aspx

 

I am going thru this right now with a 59 Chevy. This car had a homemade padded dash so it also had a layer of dried out foam under the fabric. Add in the mice in the glovebox and it gets nasty. Old photos as I still need to remove windshield to do top of dash.

Remove fabric. I used an old teakwood kitchen s****er, a soft br*** s****er, an application of paint stripper. This worked well and got most of the glue/fabric residue off. Then followed with lots of sanding. I tried lots of combinations and still not done with the main dash.

 

Wow, you sure had your work cut out for you. Guess you never know whats underneath till you pull off the cover.

..that sure is alot of switches

 

I like 3M adhesive remover. Since it is a fabric as you described, I think the material would soak it up and then after a short time should help it turn loose. It's safe on the paint below if you're wanting to save it.

 

I just went through this as well. Removing the fabric was no issue, but the glue residue - YEESH! To compound the issue, the garnishes had been chopped and finished with bondo in places and I did not want to have to body-work already nicely shaped pieces. I ended up using a small flapper wheel in the drill to "sand" the goo off. Went fairly quickly; and from there I sanded, spray filled, sanded, primed and painted!! Had to love the '80s tweed upholstery...!

Let us know how you make out.
Dave

 

This or Goof Off should both do the trick for you.

When my mom was living with us she used both ( I had a bottle of each) and a gasket s****er to remove some tile mastic from a hard wood floor in the house. If it will take mastic off it'll take anything off.

 

3 m weather stripping and adhesive remover. Works awesome. Done this 2 times in the past, soak it and it will peel off in a snap plus it softens tge glue and makes it easy to s**** off.

 

X2, I had to do it to all my 40 sedan garnish mldgs too

 

Thanks for the input! I wound up ripping the old cloth off by hand then using a propane torch on the mess left behind - about 6" at a time. A small wire brush quickly removed every trace and left clean bare steel. No chemicals!