> Jensen Healey & Jensen GT Tech > Body & interior stuff > Paint stripper for headlight surrounds - safe for plastic? |
> Jensen Healey & Jensen GT Tech > Body & interior stuff > Paint stripper for headlight surrounds - safe for plastic? |
| Moderated by: Greg Fletcher | ||
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answerman Member
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The title pretty much says it all. If you've been following Ms. Jenavieve's progress in the "Projects" area, you know that one thing I have to do is remove a really bad Maaco-style paint job. No problem on most of the car, but I have to also strip the headlight surrounds (though I'm having a bit of luck just peeling the paint off, that's how bad it is). Any ideas for a chemical stripper that won't eat the plastic? |
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Art DeKneef Member
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Klean-Strip makes a paint remover for plastic. Though I have never used it. A few people have used Capt. Lee's paint stripper for fiberglass on corvette's with good results. So that might be another option. They said you need really good ventilation to use this product. Trying this on the backside of the surrounds would be a good test. I don't think media blasting would work unless there is a really soft material that removes just paint. Crushed glass works well removing paint but I have never used it on anything other than steel. So that leave's the old standby of sanding. When I prepped mine they weren't too bad so I just sanded them to smooth them out. |
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answerman Member
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Tried the Klean-Strip for Flexible Plastic (they had it in an aerosol can at O'Reilly's) and it seemed to work ok, though it was kind of messy, probably due to the multiple layers of paint. One headlight pod is ready after the strip and a whole lot of sanding. I suspect it would work better on a properly painted surface, but as I stated earlier this is definitely not properly painted. Just out of curiosity, what is the actual "factory" order of things on the headlight pods as far as layers of paint? Is it body color for the whole pod, and then the black inset sprayed over, or the reverse? It was kind of hard to tell on mine with all the layers, but it seemed like there was black pretty much all the way through. |
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Art DeKneef Member
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Agree working with paint stripper is messy. But sometimes it is the only alternative. I have noticed that working with these cars some of the paint comes off real easy and some takes more work. Whatever the primer was they used back then it has been very durable in regards to paint stripper. As for the paint order of the headlight surrounds, I do not know. But I think it would be car color first and then the black. I think it would be easier masking for the black after paint. Especially if they had a lot of paper cutouts already made. Usually that's the way it is done because you do not want to have to touch the black paint after because of the sheen. |
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