New form of torture
 

Got somebody you want to punish? Excellent! Have I got the answer for you. The next time you want to punish somebody and waterboarding seems a bit extreme, just go ask them to go remove some Dynamat or similar sound dampening material. Yep, think Exxon Valdez cleanup. God bless the next generation of restoration folks who have to deal with all the metal we're sticking this stuff to.

If you prepped your metal properly and you used a roller and stuck that Dynamat on there real good(so the stuff would actually work), then congratulations, somebody is now screwed if they have to remove it. I tried all the tricks and techniques(heat gun, rip it off quickly, various scrapers, holy water). If it's a big flat surface, it's not too bad, but removing it from something complicated like the package tray and bracing behind the rear seat was absolute hell(you can actually hear Satan laughing). I could only remove small strips at a time using a glass/razor scraper and a little bit of heat. Running a heat gun in front of the scraper as I was removing it did seem to help a little. After you go through that, then you're still left with a lot of rubber residue stuck on the metal and that's where the fun really starts. You then get to scrape as much of that off as you can and then use a solution like mineral spirits(odorless if you don't want to hallucinate) and a boat(yacht) load of towels. That's the real sh_t part right there. I wish I had discovered and could share some sort of magical process for getting it off, but unfortunately I didn't find one. It just flat out sucks. I'm not sure if Dynamat comes off any easier than the B-Quiet product that I used or some of the other products out there.

My sympathy and prayers goes out to anybody faced with removing this stuff from complicated surfaces.

It was in the interior of my car which was still mostly assembled so media blasting wasn't really an option, however I don't think media blasting would have any affect on a tar-like substance such as that. You'd probably just end up with a layer of tar with a nice sand and perforated foil inlay.

I think Chris's finished car would have been reduced to bunch of tar-like-goo and little more if he had tried that until it was all gone. That stuff is the absolute worst. I think I used B-quiet, and it B-quite a pain in the ass to remove. I shared your plight when I decided to change my master cylinder and pedal setup to a floor mount one, which involved cutting the floor, which involved pulling up the carpet, which then involved removing the B-quiet stuff.I was armed with only a bondo scraper, and soon gave up. I think Dick at BOS ended up using a chisel to scrape it off, which he claims is the preferred method. I want to say someone mentioned freezing the stuff first.

Matt

It helps to remove that stuff in the freezing cold, SO I guess hauling the car out of SD would be your first step.

On the early 50's cars that have gallons of rubber under coating on the bottom we turn the car on it's top on the rotisserre and let the rubber soak in with diesel fuel. I wonder if doing the same with the dynamat might make your life easier. If you media blast under coating it just goo's up unless it's 20 degree. Either way it still sucks to do.

I bet diesel fuel and an scraper makes your life alot easier.

Maybe diesel fuel and a match!

The problem with being able to "soak" something like Dynamat is that darn foil layer. The foil blocks anything from reaching the tar layer, so you'd still have to get that foil off so the chemical can reach the tar layer. If you're going to pull off the foil layer, you might as well get as much of the tar to come off while your scraping off the foil. I agree with you though, after the foil is removed, soaking the remaining tar for a while with a chemical like diesel might make it just wipe off with some towels, but even so it's still a filthy and towel/time-consuming mess. For vertical surfaces, soaking would be a bit challenging.

Extreme cold might help because it might cause the tar to stick together better or even become brittle instead of coming apart as you're pulling it off, but I actually found it more difficult to pull the B-Quiet material away from the metal when it was "San Diego" cold(55 degrees). Maybe 'freezing' would yield a different result than just cold. The B-Quiet stuff is really sticky which makes it work great but kills the removal process.

Maybe some TNT? Flamethrower? :fire:

Half-way through the process, I considered using that on myself.

What about ice packs or maybe if you could figure out a way use dry ice.


Or just call the super hero MR FREEZE.

Did you call Dynamat?

Being in the floor covering business for 35 years I understand your situation. At least it doesn't have asbestos and resides in a teachers home. :unibrow:

I haven't personally worked with Dynamat so I guessing based on flooring options. Your best chance may be dry ice in a container that transfers temp. the adhesive has a chance of shearing with a tool like a gasket scraper. Freeze spray for real tight areas.

Another option, similar to decal removal, is finding and optimum temp that the adhesive releases using a heat gun.

The elbow grease method with razor blade scrapers then soak what you can't get with the scraper with a citrus based adhesive remover.

First I'd call Dynamat and ask them for solutions, after all it is their fault!! :D