Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

When I got my Packard a couple of years ago, one of the first things I noticed was the huge amount of crud that coated almost everything underneath the car.

It seemed like everything from the radiator back to the driveshaft had from 1/4" to 1/2" of thick, stiff (but not entirely dry) crud on it. You couldn't even tell what some of the parts looked like originally.

When I was a teenager a century or two ago I remember being in a service station where they had a steam cleaner for taking stuff like that off. I've not been able to find anything like that myself, and so I've just made a practice of taking a paint scraper under the car with me everytime I do any other work and scraping away at whatever's near me. It's getting better and better but it occurs to me that there MUST be a better way to do this. I don't have a lift available to me so I can stand under it with a pressure washer.

What do you all do to clean the underbody? Any great ideas?

Jay

My undercoating was some kind of a tar like material on just about every flat surface and about as thick as you mention. It took heat, solvent, scraping and almost forever. Am not sure anything else will work.

My 47 had a tar like coating on much of the underside also. I suspect it was the early version of Ziebart. I used a heat gun and scrapers and found that this was the best method to remove the stuff although time consuming.

I had the same deposit on my '48. I always guessed it was some aftermarket undercoating. Kudos to my wife for endlessly scraping the front undercarriage with a rounded end 5" spatula while I worked on other things. She probably filled up a quart bucket with the debris.

"Kudos to my wife". You give her kudos from us too. I envy you your lot in life. Take good care of that lady.
And good luck on cleaning your chassis.

I use a cheap electric pressure washer (under $200 bucks). The secret is to hook it up to the hot water. I had to add a bibb valve in my basement to do this. Use a real good quality garden hose, you don't want to take a chance on it bursting under the stress.

This works as well as a steam cleaner.

Of course a real good gas powered washer works better but you would be surprised what a job the little guy can do when you add hot water.

Scrape off as much as you can get with a putty knife and screwdriver then blast away. The scraping saves an awful lot of washing.

When you get done you may have to dig out a few more gobs of grease then wash the bad spots again.

You want to dry it off and paint it as soon as possible or the metal will rust up overnight. If you can't paint right away spray it with oil or WD40.

Now I am talking about old grease and oil here. If there is factory undercoating, or even aftermarket undercoating, LEAVE IT provided it is not peeling or rusting underneath.