71 dart grille. I want to strip some paint off it. Laquer thinner and paint stripper eat the plastic. Do you guys have any tricks? Brake fluid? Oven cleaner doesnt work

Thanks

soak paper towels with brake fluid , and apply .

It's ABS plastic, you DON"T want to use ANY type of solvent on it or you will damage it. Brake fluid can soak into it and leave a residue that's near impossible to remove and it will leach into your new paint.

You can soak it in caustic soda (which usually removes most paint), soda blast it, or use a very low presure and glass bead blast it (this can and will mark the surface with a fine texture so it depends on how picky you are about original texture), lastly, you can carefully hand sand it off (potentially taking some plastic with it so I don't reccomend it)..There are no other good ways to do it (properly/safely) that I am aware of.

When I restore ABS based grilles for customers, to remove argent, factory silver/gray/black based paints, I use laquer thinner, and while laquer thinner will destroy a grille if done improperly, it can be used, I use clean white rags soaked in laquer thinner, the key is to work the entire grille removing a small amount of argent/silver/paint, once you get down to the base plastic, you need to work quickly rubbing the area, and allowing it to dry, sometimes it's even best to let the grille dry out for several days as laquer thinner can soften the plastic, argent is perhaps the worst to remove, don't be in a rush to strip it, if you use this method, and use white clean rags, as colored rags with leach their color into the plastic, and it will bite you later at repaint...

I generally avoid blasting a grille with either fine glass bead or soda/talc as it destroys or softens any detail moulded in the plastic...

I would also avoid any ideas of using chemical paint strippers, oven cleaners, brake fluid, etc, to remove any finish...

Mike

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I generally avoid blasting a grille with either fine glass bead or soda/talc as it destroys or softens any detail moulded in the plastic...

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I have no problem at all with these methods but it does require a touch, more so with glass beads.

i have had good results with corvette paint stripper on plastic parts.
i did a challenger header panel that came out nice
a good autobody supply place will have it.
i would advise to test a spot first before going crazy with the stuff.

Thanks for the input guys! I ended up using an S.O.S pad and it worked fine where the old silver was. Wiped with alcohol then paint. On the top of the grille where it lips over the striker plate, I had to use 600 grit paper because someone had spraypainted it flat black. after Sanding, I polished it. No hemicuda, but I think it suits my discerning eye.