TOPIC:

Ok so as part of the Clunes haul I picked up the Lancia 58117 rally, unfortunately the paint work on the body shell is HORRIBLE Even the PO said he hated it (and he did it ) Now apart from the paint the body is generally in good order the wing is broken but repairable and there is a few cracks in the front and rear bumpers The other good part is the cockpit is still intact I know you can pick up a replacement shell for not to much, but I did want to try for myself removing paint(s) from a lexan shell Here is the results so far using DOT4, there are several different types of paint on here and the white (on the body) seems to be the most stubborn after 3hours and a little scrubbing here is where I'm at. According to the Video from URC using this method, it will take a total of 6hours to complete the job

I am happy with the results so far since I'm hoping to save the original rims and tyres too, I have left the rims to soak overnight (they only have a thin layer of green ) the tyres have ended up with flat spots (after sitting for so long) so I have left them so soak in boiling water luckily they haven't rotted

Well then, that was fun After another 3 hrs of soaking it seemed inevitable that I would have to do some scrapping Basically then if your lexan shell only has lexan paint the dot4 method will work nicely . In my case I think the age of the paint + time and the fact that some was most likely house enamel what a job Anyway I am happy with how it has cleaned up and that this didn't damage the shell The cockpit clean up well but for some reason I can't get the last of the old paint off Since I plan on priming it for a decent paint job this won't be an issue + the heads came out better than I expected I had a pleasant surprise when I got this, I got the box (tatty) manual (tatty) but the PO hadn't put all the decals on and had kept them in the back of the manual where amazingly they survived Unfortunately it seems that I will have to loose some already on the body but since some have dirt behind them I would have taken them off anyway . So here's some pic's of everything, I'll make a mask out the windows tomorrow ready to repaint Oh and the rims are coming along, left to soak overnight and half the paint came off, so doing the same tonight and hopefully the rest will (you can tell this was only used on dirt , no curb rash )

So today was painting day after of course I went to the shops with Wifey (happy wife, happy life ) I had enough time before we went to mask up the windows and areas I wanted to give the new paint scheme a bit of flavour Once everything else was taken care of I laid on the first coat of white, then some silver for the bumpers and lower door panels and lastly I backed with black with a little trim at the bottom of the doors I let it harden up then started to remove the decals with dirt behind them or were unfortunately in the wrong place Gave it a soapy bath and now she's ready for new decals

That certainly looks a heck of a lot better than it did before

Forgot about the rims 98% of that green paint came off but they'll need a coat of white to finish Tyres don't look to be reviving so I'd already taken the rally blocks off the TL01 so I'll use those

Progress made but for the life if me How are you suppose to get the decals to go around that many different curves without a crease

Using a hairdrier to soften the decals helps them go over difficult bits ... but you do have to be patient

fun with theese rims

Little update still haven't got around to adding the last of the decals but I did give the rims a fresh coat of white tonight I'll let them harden then fit the new rally tyres to them