Remove or Not to Remove - Rubber Floor...

[Good4YouGuys]

We just started our bus conversion and we are trying to remove the rubber flooring, but it is glued pretty tight to the metal floor and it is coming off in very small pieces. Can't seem to find the right tool or solvent to get it up. any suggestions?

Thanks so much for any guidance you can give.

[Tango]

It is best to know what the condition of the steel floor is before diving in too deep. The typical skoolie can have a fair to extreme amount of damage ranging from light surface oxidation to complete rust through. Skoolie windows are notoriously leaky plus many districts literally "hose down" the floors on a regular basis. The worst damage is usually around the wheel and door wells. And if the steel is rusty, the plywood has probably begun to rot in some areas so it really should come out. Unfortunately, the only way to know is to pull it all up.

[DoubleO7]

Has anyone tried using an air chisel with a wide blade to get thru the glue?

[Good4YouGuys]

There is no wood flooring underneath the rubber. It is straight rubber glued on metal. We have checked under the bus for any damage and have seen none due to rust. I won't know anything else, until we get the rubber up off the metal flooring. That is what we are having difficulty with.

[family wagon]

In general cold will make things brittle and prone to fracturing. You might be able to use dry ice to make the floor really cold and then hit it with some kind of scraping tool. Breaking the floor out in small chips might not be so bad if at least it progresses quickly. I haven't tried it so I can't set any expectation for what'll happen. Cold would probably work well if you run into any of the black tar-like asphalteum that is used in various places (but mostly walls and ceiling).

At the other extreme, heat will generally make things soft and pliable. An electric heat gun might help the adhesive relax and stretch so that you can pull the rubber off it in larger pieces. There'll be a mess of adhesive left on the steel, though if you experiment you might find a magic temperature at which the residue is minimized.

If you want clean bare metal then after the rubber is out you could try several things to attack the adhesive residue: heat and scrape with a metal putty knife, chill and scrape/chisel/sand, or maybe warm slightly and use naphtha or "aircraft" paint stripper.

[superdave]

they sell scrapers, I think there called slam scrapers. it has a long handle with a 6 "blade. we use them to remove linoleum or sticky tiles

[milkmania]

Only this I know about this thing is it's got 13 five star reviews and 2,100 strokes per minute....

42 in. Long Reach Air Scraper

[DoubleO7]

or this one for $25 but only three stars.

" quickly removes gaskets, paint, rust, glue and other materials without damaging metal surfaces."

6 Piece Pneumatic Scraper Kit

[Good4YouGuys]

Thank you...I'll look in to these.

[Bluespoet]

I would pull it if I felt there was rust to address, but my shuttle bus has plywood and with my last bus, did try pulling the rubber floor, never again and today just finished putting 1/4" subfloor and flooring in over the rubber floor. If I have to rip it out again, likely I will be looking at a new bus anyway, since I get a new bus about every ten yrs, but this one I have had 7 yrs and putting in new interior. I do not put in a bunch of cabinets and systems, but have nice looking functional interiors, but not much money.