Cleaning grill pieces for paint

[DirtyWhite77]

My 77 was given a very poor paint job back in the day and someone just shot right over the front grill pieces. So I need to remove the paint off the left and right center grill pieces and the left side Pontiac tag. My plan is to get a low grade paint stripper and take my time with them letting them soak a little at a time and reapplying stripper as I need it. Do you guys think that would damage the plastic of the grill or the pontiac emblem? I think the emblem is metal with a chrome finish. The chrome rings around the grill parts is still very shiny and mirror finish where the paint has chipped off so I don’t want to use any kind of abrasive on it.


My car is going to be repainted black at some point so I’m not worried about shiny black paint with my dull black paint. If my car came black in 77, would the inside of the grill shells be gloss black? I’m talking about the area behind the chrome ring that goes all the way around the front of it. I figure it was either gloss black or semi gloss.

My plan for the emblem specifically is to clean all the overspray paint off with paint remover, coat the whole front recessed part with the letters gloss/semi gloss black. And then coming back with some paint thinner on a rag and wiping the paint off the letters so the chrome shines through the black background. I assume this is what it would look when it was new.

Any have any objections/suggestions to the paint stripper to remove the overspray and then painting the emblem like that

[JJ 109]

I would try lacquer thinner. Soak some paper towels with it and let it sit on the surface for a couple minutes.

Get some red scuff pad and dip those in it too and go at it.

[Johnny ace]

Just don't use acetone on plastic!

[737driver]

I had some really ugly grills on my 72. Somebody spray bombed them with black paint in the past. I tried a lot of different cleaners. A technique I used was using my bead blaster set on 45-50 psi ( low pressure). The glass beads did a great job on the plastic. Once it was blasted a quick touch up with 400/ 600 grit sand paper the plastic was pretty much back to an original surface . I then used adhesion promoter after I cleaned them up. I then re sprayed them with silver and I really liked how they turned out. I couldn’t ask for a better result.

Jim

[Wallington]

There's excellent reproductions available for grilles and emblem for '77. 40 year old originals with resprays removed may not be in a condition to be worthwhile. Can still try as probably not much good as is. Don't get even weak strippers near the chrome on the plastic.

[roadking77]

The chrome is over plastic. Mine scratch with a micro fibre cleaning cloth.  I woulnt even think about putting a chemical stripper on them, let alone something abrasive. Second though, maybe a mild stripper would work to loosen the paint a bit but be careful. The rest of the grill should be pretty easy, even with some abrasive. The new grills are expensive, I would def try to save those if you can. Plus, like a lot of parts my new grills I bought did not quite fit correctly. I had to take my belt sander to them.