Kwik-Strip Before & After Paint Stripping Pics

[Old Moparz]

Most people have heard of Redi-Strip services, the place that provides paint & rust stripping by way of submerging the parts, or the entire car in a chemical tank. The one I used is now called Kwik-Strip in Allentown, PA & the closest one to me in New York with a 2 hour drive, one way. I've seen the Allentown ad in Hemmings since the late 1980's & recently decided to try them out on some parts instead of grinding, blasting, or sanding for who knows how many days.

Some advice if you decide to call, or go there. It's basically a one man operation, so the owner, John, may or may not answer the phone. It's best to reach him early in the morning before he's out in the shop. If you go there in person, it isn't as easy to find as most places. There is no building with a number on it, it looks to be an old freight yard with lots of old railroad sidings that lead into the metal buildings. The property is huge, & has several other businesses operating & all have the same address. There is an old Redi-Strip sign on the fence, & the only indication the place is in there.

Kwik Strip Inc.  
610-437-7878
1 W. Allen St. Unit #5
Allentown, PA 18102

I was told that the method was to first bake the parts in a large oven to burn off the paint & undercoating. It would turn it all to ash & ready it for the submersion in hydrochloric acid to remove the rust. After soaking in the acid, it would be rinsed & treated with a phosphate that leaves a temporary coating to prevent flash rust on the surface. This protection won't last long, so you need to store the parts indoors in a dry location & paint them right away.

25 years ago when I bought my 1969 Satellite convertible, the front fenders were nasty. Since I sold my '70 GTX & liked the '70 front end a little better than the '69, I yanked the '69 nose, sold the parts at a swap meet, & put the spare '70 front clip on the Satellite. After all these years I bought another '70, my Road Runner, so I decided that that Satellite needed to have the correct nose back on it. I found a solid pair of fenders for at Carlisle a few years ago & decided to experiment with Kwik-Strip.

You can see all the original paint & undercoating in the pics. This would have taken forever to strip it manually, & I don't have time for that.

(1,2,3,& 7)

[Old Moparz]

This area would be a nightmare to strip by hand.

(9)

[Old Moparz]

After just a one week turnaround on the parts being stripped, I went to go get them. Of course there is both good news, & bad news. The good news is that both fenders were stripped completely right down to the bare metal. The bad news is that the one bad area on the underside bracing, was also on the outer sheet metal. It should be an easy repair since it's not in a tough area to work on & relatively small.

The small amount of surface rust you see is because I waited several days for all the damn rain to stop so I can get some self etching primer on them.  

(25, 26, 28, & 29)

[Old Moparz]

Once I had both fenders cleaned up from the surface rust & scuffed with a wire wheel, I sprayed them with a self etching primer. The primer was just a rattle can of Rustoleum. & will be sprayed later with a sealer. I am not sure how long it'll be before the car makes it to the body shop to be painted, but some areas will need to be worked on so this is all a long term, temporary measure.

The underside of the fenders were treated with a different type of paint that is a sealer/primer. A friend of mine told me about it & we've used it many times over the years & it works great. It used to be called "Master Coat", but now is called "Master Series Coatings" by PM Industries. It's some strong stuff & holds up much better than any other paint I've used. It's similar to POR-15, but I like it better & so does my friend who's used both.

PM Industries: http://www.masterseriescoatings.com/index/

Master Series Page: http://www.masterseriescoatings.com/index/primer/

(30, 31, 34, & 37)

[Old Moparz]

The nice thing about the Master Series paint is that you can brush it on, or spray it on, but you can't thin it to do so. (says so in the instructions) Since it's the underside, I used a bunch of the disposable sponge brushes which will contour & fit into all the hard to reach areas. The underside of the headlight pods are accessible with pressing the sponge by hand, but make sure you use rubber gloves since this stuff will not come off your skin.

(36)

[Tilar]

Interesting and that looks really good. I wonder what it would cost to get the whole car done?   

That would be so much easier than trying to strip and sand the entire car.

[Old Moparz]

Interesting and that looks really good. I wonder what it would cost to get the whole car done?   

That would be so much easier than trying to strip and sand the entire car.

No doubt it's easier. The fenders were $210 to strip the pair. The tanks he has are big enough to dip the entire car, but I didn't ask him how much that would cost. The building has a crane, so if you brought your car there on a trailer, he can lift the car right off. This is something that you'd need to talk to him directly about since I don't know the exact procedure. If you have the car stripped of all parts down to a shell, you still need a way to lift it so nothing is damaged. I was told by a body shop that has used Kwik-Strip before, that they did a convertible & welded in a temporary frame with a place for the crane to hook it so it can be lifted.

The owner of Kwik-Strip is a Mopar guy himself, & had his own, mid 60's Imperial ready to go into the tank when I picked up my fenders. The reason I had these fenders done now, is that I am planning to dip my '68 Coronet convertible & wanted to see how the process goes on a smaller scale. I won't be ready for the entire car to be dipped for a while, but I do have to plan for it.

Here's a couple more photos showing the passenger side fender before & after. The headlight area came out nice & I couldn't imagine getting it this clean any other way.

[Silver R/T]

Good job, this should've been posted in body section

[Old Moparz]

Good job, this should've been posted in body section

I thought about that & almost did, but I figured it was more beneficial to post it here as a service I was happy with, that takes care of a rust issue. They aren't strictly catering to the automotive field, & they can strip anything, not just car parts. I was very happy with the results & the price, & wanted to show others who may be looking for a way to tackle a nasty job. If Troy or any of the mods want it moved, then that's fine, but I think more people will see it here.  

It's kind of a heads up on a place that worked out, not a warning like "Beware of halpaggy" or "Don't step in BK's s**t".......LOL

I posted this mainly to show the differences in the before & after process of Kwik-Strip as well as the contact info.

[Silver R/T]

would be nice to strip whole car but its far too expensive for me

[Old Moparz]

would be nice to strip whole car but its far too expensive for me

If you do the work yourself & have the time, you'll definitely save money. The problem I have is that I don't have the time anymore to do these time consuming tasks. I spent hours sandblasting leaf springs & brackets, still not done, & with the rain we've had I can't set up outside to do this. Not too long ago, I read on another site somewhere that someone paid about $1200 to have an entire car dipped at some other chemical dipping facility. I would assume that the price at Kwik-Strip might be in the same ball park, but I don't know for sure yet.

In comparison to blasting, I priced with a local guy to strip two leaf springs that I already took apart. He told me $85/hour with a 2 hour minimum. That's not very cost effective.  

If I had more parts to group together, or the entire car ready to get dipped, it would be well worth it to drag it to Kwik-Strip because of the time savings. These two fenders were just a test for me to see how well the method worked. You can ask people what they like to do, or what options there are, but in the end it comes down to what works best for your own car & budget. I've seen what people go through to get undercoating off, try to get the hard to reach areas, or pay someone to do work & get screwed.

This worked out good for me. Even with AMD making new '69 Plymouth fenders, which I still am considering because they are NEW, they are around $1200/pr. I'm into these two used fenders right now for about $500 including what I bought them for. They will still need some minimal work, but hopefully not $700 worth.

[Tilar]

I wonder if that will remove any old bondo that might be there.

[Old Moparz]

I wonder if that will remove any old bondo that might be there.

The owner, John at Kwik-Strip, mentioned to me on the phone before I brought him the fenders, that I should make sure that anything on the fender that I want to salvage that isn't metal should be removed. The example he gave was the plastic retainers/sockets that are pressed into the headlight pod areas for mounting the headlight rings. He said if you don't remove them, they won't be there after the dip.

If the plastic managed to survive the baking process, which is unlikely, I doubt it'll make it past the hydrochloric acid dip. These fenders I have didn't have any bondo in them & showed no signs of any past body work, so I don't now how the dipping effects body filler. My guess is it would all disappear like the paint, rust, undercoating, & plastics.

[dodgecharger-fan]

It takes out all the dum-dum in between the panel skins as well. Such as in the hood and deck lid.

That's good or bad depending on your frame of mind. It's worth noting before jumping into the dip tank though.

I've been told that slamming a hood that has been dipped sounds like a great big tin can getting beat with a baseball bat.

[b5blue]

Thanks for posting this 

[Old Moparz]

It takes out all the dum-dum in between the panel skins as well. Such as in the hood and deck lid.

That's good or bad depending on your frame of mind. It's worth noting before jumping into the dip tank though.

I've been told that slamming a hood that has been dipped sounds like a great big tin can getting beat with a baseball bat.

I've had various cars over the years that have had rattling issues because that "dum-dum" stuff is either missing, or not adhered to both panels anymore. After 35 to 40 years, I suppose the material dries up & breaks down, especially with engine heat & vibrations. I bought a used, 1969 Road Runner/GTX hood for my Satellite last year, & came close to bringing it to have it dipped with the fenders, but wanted to wait to see how the fenders came out. The dum-dum as you call it, is already separated in a few places on the hood, so it would need to be reapplied anyway.

Just a thought, but is that dum-dum stuff the same as the seam sealer?

[dodgecharger-fan]

It's more like caulking.

"When I did my roof, the local auto body repair supply store indicated that 3M "strip-calk" was the same basic stuff that was called "dum-dum" in the old days."

http://www.ply33.com/Repair/roof

and chebbies use it to seal emblem pins in the holes: http://www.automedia.com/Emblem_Installation/res20060101ei/1

That's a good picture of the box that the stuff comes in.

(disclaimer: I'm no body guy, but I've seen the stuff used in shops for this exact purpose.)

[6pk2go]

Does anybody know what happen to kwik strip ? I try to call the phone number but its disconnect.Can anybody help me out.I have a car to do

[Silver R/T]

I would've used epoxy primer rather than self-etching primer (old technology) Of course it that's all that you have to work with, then you don't have much choice

[Old Moparz]

Does anybody know what happen to kwik strip ? I try to call the phone number but its disconnect.Can anybody help me out.I have a car to do

Unfortunately it's closed. I would have used it again recently to get a few more parts stripped, but had read on another forum that the owner closed it down due to high insurance costs.

http://forums.aaca.org/f169/kwik-strip-allentown-still-open-303817.html

"Thanks for the info. I was finally able to get through to the owner of Kwik Strip, John Graver with the aid of restorer Tom Zitkus, who had his home number. John told me that the business is indeed closed. He said that prohibitive insurance costs caused his coverage to lapse, and his landlord to evict him. The landlord locked him out, imprisoning all the car parts he was going to strip... including my 1913 Metz fenders and hood. John was eventually able to get back into the building to remove the customer parts and bring them to his home, but he told me that he has no telephone numbers of the parts' owners. I'm going up there this weekend to pick up my parts... I hope! If anyone else has parts up there, I can pass you the info.

Phil"

[PocketThunder]

Bob, the grass is growing up in front of your garage doors which can only mean one thing, you spend more time working on your cars than driving them.  D'oh!   

[Old Moparz]

Bob, the grass is growing up in front of your garage doors which can only mean one thing, you spend more time working on your cars than driving them.  D'oh!   

Then get your ass over here & get to work. I'll even pick up a bottle of Maker's Mark. 

[PocketThunder]

Bob, the grass is growing up in front of your garage doors which can only mean one thing, you spend more time working on your cars than driving them.  D'oh!   

Then get your ass over here & get to work. I'll even pick up a bottle of Maker's Mark. 

Awe man you're killing me.....     

[Old Moparz]

Bob, the grass is growing up in front of your garage doors which can only mean one thing, you spend more time working on your cars than driving them.  D'oh!   

Then get your ass over here & get to work. I'll even pick up a bottle of Maker's Mark. 

Awe man you're killing me.....     

I've got some smoked venison from a coworker, too. 



As for the stripping process in the northeast, forget it. I had tried to search for a similar business & have had no luck in finding one within a reasonable distance. The closest ones that I'm aware of that can handle a complete car or large parts are in North Carolina & the Midwest.

The one in NC is called Carolina Chem Strip.
http://www.chem-strip.com/

The Midwest ones that I know about are Redi-Strip, with several places in Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin & Michigan.

There are also E-coating places that dip again after stripping to seal the car or parts, like this one.....
http://www.musclecarrestorations.com/ecoat.html

[66FBCharger]

That is a bummer! I used Kwik strip on everything I could unbolt from my '70 road runner resto. There was a place that did chemical stripping in Mass. I am not sure if the are still open.