Methods to remove painted lettering

I'm not sure if any of the citrus based strippers will work, but it's worth a try on a very small area. I'd highly recommend that he or she do it out of direct sun pretest to find out what will work best.

 

They should be prepared for it not to work. With that length of time and background color I don't know anything that would work without marring the finish.

 

Oh no........ 14 years on a dark color? Even under the best conditions, there is going to be some ghosting and fading to deal with. Good luck to them and hope for the best.

 

MAACO

 

^ yep. Or take to an auto body shop to have it sanded off with 2000 grit and polish everything out.

 

Just about anything you do will not only do a lousy job removing the paint, but create one heck of a haze all over. I'd either try to sand it out and make a whole new graphic to encompass the whole area or just do a partial wrap. Paint that old still had a lotta good ingredients in it. Good luck.

 

Wow, that's in great shape. did he keep it inside? In any case, if it were my friend I'd suggest a budget repaint or partial wrap. Either way he can try to remove first, but he risks making it even more work

 

You can try lacquer thinner and see if it eats off the lettering that would be my best bet, dont leave it on too long, but you are definitely going to have ghosting. IMO I would walk from this job and let a body shop handle this

 

I have always heard the old school method was oven cleaner, but I have never used it... I wouldn't touch
a painted vehicle.

 

Slap a maroon decal on it,
to make it less noticeable.
People that have these kind of problems are usually not nitpickers. They're happy for some kind of a cheap Improvement, and are easily satisfied.

 

Oven cleaner does work. But it's hard on the paint. It dulls it and can discolor a dark finish. But you can often bring it back with compound on a polishing bonnet. For that matter, I have frequently removed lettering with compound only. On a slower speed. You just need to go carefully to avoid going through to the primer. Removing old lettering with compound will leave the area very shiny.



Brad in Kansas City

 

In 1996 that paint was given a forever home with the van body color. Time for a new professional van paint job , if the owner wants it to look good

 

Ya know, that's something we used to do, back in the 70's and 80's, during the van mural craze. We started with gently sanding with 1200 grit paper on a van and put murals on it. All hand painted and airbrushed. While it was sanded, it looked bad, but once we hit it with the final coats of clear, it looked good as new. See, back then, they put a lotta paint on the vehicles and not much clears. Today, it's completely the opposite. 1996 might have enough paint on it to sand it, but ya hafta be very careful, since it's metallic. You cannot feather in metallic.