The nastiest job I’ve had to tackle while reworking my Chevy pickup? Digging the old undercoating from the floorboards, the transfer case and the transmission.
A lot of people go the heat-it-with-the-torch and scrape it route. I tried that initially, but the smoke and the burns (from the occasional piece of smoldering tar on the arm) got annoying.
So then I switched to a 4-inch electric angle grinder with a wire wheel. This is effective, but the dust from the undercoating flies everywhere, sticking to your clothes, your skin, and everything in the work area. On top of that, it eats wire wheels like crazy — which gets to be expensive at $6 each.
So last week I laid out $19.99 for an “Oscillating Multifunction Power Tool” at Harbor Freight. Armed with the optional (extra cost) scraper attachment, it quickly knocked the undercoating off without all the dust and smoke. In places where the undercoat was dry and hard, the scraper kind of chipped it away. Where it was soft and pliable, it peeled it off in sheets. There were a couple of spots I couldn’t reach, but I’m heading back to the store to see if they sell a narrower scraper.
Downsides? It’s a little noisy and vibrates like crazy, but the effort it takes to hang on to the OMPT is no greater than clinging to a disc grinder with a wire wheel.
If you’re currently suffering through a job like this, give the Harbor Freight OMPT a shot. It seems well worth the sub-$30 investment.
Incidentally, because the tool was apparently on sale already at $19.99, the store staff wouldn’t let me use the 20 percent off coupon I clipped from the Harbor Freight ad in Hemmings Motor News.