OUMF's Newest tool- The MAX Bristle Blaster- A short report

My arms are sore, it’s cramped, and for gosh sake, this underseal does not come off easily! This was my situation before the holidays as I lay on the freezing barn floor with a flathead screwdriver and a hammer trying to prep our 1969 Riley Kestrels underside for a new coat of paint (or even just any paint!) and then some Zircoflex in the exhaust tunnel. Before any of that though, we need to rid the car of this horrendous underseal.   
​

​(The State of the underside)

Even with the excitement of possibly seeing its true state, there was no way I’d ever see it before going home for Christmas because our current tools could not get this underseal off in haste, either getting gunked up or just being excruciatingly physical. I try to get off as much as possible with my flathead and hammer, eventually though, I have to head off. As I pack up, Ding tells of the possibility of getting a tool that could solve all my underseal troubles. It was just a maybe at that time so I leave Oxford with high hopes that upon my return this dream tool will be in the hands of OUMF.
 While getting gifts on Christmas was fantastic, the greatest came nearly a month later in the form of a forwarded email, confirming that the great people at Cactus Industrial and Rust Buster were going to supply us with a MBX Bristle Blaster, a post Christmas miracle!
Getting back to Oxford and the team, there it is, an unsuspecting black case. In my excitement (now don't tell anyone this) I accidentally snapped off a latch on the case! As I opened it, I imagine I looked like I had found buried treasure, there it was in all its Bristly beauty. After a whole team effort, we flip the Kestrel on its side, plug the wonder that is the Bristle Blaster in, and let the tool do its job. My goodness does it do its job, what once was a gunky mess of underseal becomes a beautiful metal surface that looked like it had just come off the assembly line in 1969. No scoring, NO underseal, and a smile on everyone's face due to just how easy it was, it just worked! Rarely does that happen at the OUMF barn. 

​(It just works!)

The entire underside of the car, even including the subframes, were clean. The floor only took around 4 hours total. To put that into perspective, before the blaster, during my hammer and flathead days, I cleared a 5 inch by 5 inch square in 4 hours. Boy, once the underseal was off we found a host of problems which we would have never seen otherwise. So, 2 weeks on since receiving gods gift to OUMF, the Kestrel has a solid floor which is covered fully in paint and an exhaust tunnel with Zircoflex. Hopefully soon the Kestrel will be put rightside up and possibly even run a bit. No matter what, we know the floor is solid and will stay that way for a long, long, loooong while, or at least until the Bristle Blaster will be called upon again. That beauty of a machine. To Cactus industries and Rust Buster, my triceps thank you!

(The fully cleaned and painted underside)

-Charlie Lemme, first year motorsport engineering student at Oxford Brookes university