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Stripping body filler with heat

D

DairyFarmerInMA

Member
I am looking for suggestions on removing body filler off a
tractor hood. The whole hood was skim coated years ago by
someone else it got some dings here and there. I used a
hammer and dolly to remove the dents which of course
cracked some of the filler. It's a work tractor I only want clean
reasonably smooth metal to prime and paint.

Will a 200*F power washer be hot enough to lift and blast it
off? or will I need to "gently" heat with s propane torch and
scrape?
Thanks in advance for your help
 
If it were mine and it was a true skim coat I would sand it down to where the cracked areas were bare metal. Then skim coat it and block sand it flat with a long block. I don't think the power washer will do much and a torch may give you a wavy surface. Best way to remove it would be a DA with 40 grit.
 
I would just work the areas where the filler was cracking and remove it with a roto stripper. It's kind of like a wire wheel only with coat hangers for wire. It will take anything off and roughen the metal for new bondo in the process.
 

Quite a few older tractors have skim coated sheet metal. It is a quick and easy way to fill the rust pits. If you sand off all of the bondo, you will only have to skim coat the hood again. If it were mine, I would just repair the damaged area.
 
The paint strippers will soften the filler a bit then I will take a razor blade holder and scrape it all off. Time consuming but it gets you down to bare metal. I was always told not to trust underlaying bondos,or fillers as you don't know how well any underlying rust was treated by the first guy. If you start at the metal you know each layer .
 

I found that heat was a great way to remove bondo. That is heat from a true heatgun. Not hair dryer. I used this on my '50 chevy truck to get the bondo off the fenders and cab corners. The bondo will soften up and can be scraped off with a putty knife in chunks. No dust from this method and not enough heat to warp the metal and does not ignite the filler.
 
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