the bus-rubber glue .. oh darnit

[rhoyerboat]

I have been scraping bus rubber up off of the floor for almost 10 hours now, with the claw of a hammer .. alongside seat / mid-chassis heater tearout. I think I am a little less than 40 percent done. (and very tired.)

It was way easier when it was hot outside, which makes me think heat gun would make the rubber come out better .. but I also wonder what kind of solvent I can use to deal with the rubber and glue without contributing as much to corrosion.

Best practices? 1983 GMC.

[SassyLass]

Never done it myself, but I have heard that heat and heat guns help, especially if you have the pleasure of dealing with the black tar-like crap. Never heard of anyone using solvents on the floor. If you need to remove the school bus decals, GooGone is helpful.

[EastCoastCB]

Mine all came out as a sheet very easily.
Maybe you will need one of those blade scrapers on the end of a weighted shaft.
They're usually used for demo'ing flooring.
If there is wood underneath, you could try a saw.
Some aspects of busitude require horrible amounts of human labor.
See my thread- I've been scraping rust and tar for two months now.

[porkchopsandwiches]

Mine came up in big sheets because the floor was real rusty. If you have an air supply, get an air chisel and try that out. If you can weld, try and weld a wide putty knife or somne sheet metal to the chisel for wider area.

[jazty]

Lots of solvents will do the job, but instead of just cleaning up the rubber, you'll also have to clean up the solvent! Usually they're petroleum based, stinky and flammable. I have sparingly used solvents to melt butyl inside the bus, but mostly use solvents on the exterior (rubber undercoating).
Kerosene, diesel, or mineral spirits should all work.

[rock649]

Its only a light 1/8 of an inch...and if its that stuck on its not coming off if you glue something to it. For the ridges i would use a belt sander with coarse belts. Let the belts cool down every 2 or 3 minutes. They will last longer. Don't sand it smooth...just shorten the ridges to the level of the rest of the floor. Then glue down some 3/8 or even quarter inch plywood on top. Use contact cement for insane stuck...or pl400 for a good enough. Then presto. Done. Ready to go.

[onenationundergoat]

I know it's not helpful to think about now that you're 40% done, but we just put foam underlayment on top of the original floor and covered it with luan to stick self adhesive tiles to. Other places of our floor have original floor, foam underlayment, and then laminate wood floor. We removed the metal strips on the sides of the aisle, but left the grooved aisle floor. Even with the 1/8 inch grooves it's almost completely unnoticeable because the foam conformed to the spaces.

[mrblah]

I know that for the rubber coating inside my old car, dry ice worked wonders.

The rubber coating became very britle and came of MUCH more easily.

I don't know if it would apply here...

[flintino]

I had the same issue when my wife and I were taking off the rubber flooring. We were using a claw hammer till i had had enough. So I made a scraper out of a piece of angle iron and a piece of pipe. I sharpened one end of the angle iron and welded it to a piece of pipe.

To use it i had to use a 3lb hammer and hit the pipe. It worked amazing making very long 6" wide strips.

If you have access to a welder it works great.

[Maname]

There is glue adhesive on the top of our metal floor.
What is a good way to take it off???

[Sevier]

Originally Posted by rhoyerboat

I have been scraping bus rubber up off of the floor for almost 10 hours now, with the claw of a hammer .. alongside seat / mid-chassis heater tearout. I think I am a little less than 40 percent done. (and very tired.)

It was way easier when it was hot outside, which makes me think heat gun would make the rubber come out better .. but I also wonder what kind of solvent I can use to deal with the rubber and glue without contributing as much to corrosion.

Best practices? 1983 GMC.

I know that this is an old post, but thought I'd share our experience for those in future who search for answers!

We had only rubber, no plywood, glued to the floor. I've never had to rip up an old plywood bus floor, but my suspicion is that rubber alone is far more difficult to remove then sheets of plywood. We started out with a hammer and crobar, tyring to peel it up, and it would have taken us a lifetime that way.

So, we borrowed a hammer drill, and bought a 4" THIN chisel. We got 220 sq ft done in 2 hours. One of us (the stronger one of us ) handled the hammer drill and the other one of us pulled up on the rubber as the chisel pushed a path forward. I figured out towards the end that if I matched my pull speed with my partner's chisel speed, that the rubber wouldnt keep ripping up in tiny pieces. Our record was a strip of about 5 feet (4 inches wide).

Back breaking, knee breaking work. But absolutely worth it. I think a wider chisel would be even better, 6-8".

Now, we are on to the next challenge, remove all that glue

[EastCoastCB]

heat gun worked for us.

[TJones]

I found that xylene worked the best to remove glue. I would lay a soaked rag on the glue and cover it with plastic. After the glue soaked for awhile it would come right off. Make sure there is no open flame nearby and wear a respirator with an organic compound filter.

Ted