What would I be able to use to remove paint off ABS plastic without harming the surface? I can't find anything out there. I even dabbed a small area real quick with nail polish remover, brake fluid, and paint thinner. Paint still isn't coming off. I'm guessing at the most, its oil-based if that matters. Thanks in advance!

 

Try a clay bar, followed by wax.

 

Would clay bar damage the plastic surface? Cause when it was painted over, the abs plastic is still glossy. Paint comes off when I scratch with my nail, but that's going to take years

 

try some paint stripper. I'd use it on a small spot first to see if it reacts with the ABS.

uh first... what are we talking about removing paint from?

 

Can you heat it up and basically "melt" the paint off?

 

kkim: I might give paint stripper a try. I heard it might turn the plastic to a whitish tone, which would suck.

B2FiNiTY: Was thinking of that, but don't want to warp the abs plastic. Only thing I can think of is to soak it with paper towels of brake fluid, since I know brake fluid eats up powercoating with some time.

 

If you use paint stripper it will turn out like this. You'll have to sand off the junky brown stuff. It takes too long by hand so I just sanded it down smooth and painted over it.

 

arren123- what were the instructions on how to remove the stripper? some require you to wipe off, some say to rinse w/ water. also, did you try using the stripper a second time to get rid of the brown stuff? did it end up actually eating the plastic? I've used it on plastic before and it didn't seem to eat it, so that's why I recommended it.

Daryl- what are we talking about removing paint from? depending on where it is (on or off the car) you can do different things. (I would be VERY careful on using stripper if the part is still on the car.

 

The instructions were to leave it on (i think 5 or 10 minutes) then scrape the paint off. Then rinse off with water. It looks like it reacted with the plastic, but sanding the brown stuff away gave it a nice new look. I just didn't want to take another 3 to 4 hours sanding it down (wish I had a dremel) so I just sanded it smooth. The stripper said it was safe for plastic.

The brown stuff didn't really matter, the paint job turned out nice.
http://www.typer.ws/civic/after.jpg

 

kkim: the paint on the abs plastic is not part of the car. So I can work on it without worrying, other than weakening the plastic.

arren123: do you think I could just rub the paint after using paint stripper? cause I'm trying to avoid repainting the surface, since it's already originally glossy. Main concern is I hope it doesn't harden the plastic and cause it to become brittle in the future. btw, those hub caps look like originally new!

 

just use some laquer thinner. Should take it right off with a little elbow grease. Or some urethane thinner.

 

use a heat gun and peel the paint off

 

Thanks for all the help guys. I found something at Home Depot that's totally safe on plastic. It's called "MOTSENBOCKER's Lift Off 5 (Latex Based)." I layed paper towel over the surface and sprayed it down to soak. After 30 mins or so, it wiped off with light scrubbing.

 

DO NOT TRY THAT!

The paint stripper you get at Advance Auto or Home Depot WILL eat the ABS, Try laquer thinner or acetone but DONT use paint stripper.

Mike

 

Excuse my ignorance, but I take it you are not talking about Anti-lock Brake System (ABS) but a kind of plastic (ABS?). Could you enlighten me? Always want to learn.

 

No anti-lock brakes. This would be acrylonitrile-butadene-styrene (sp?), a high impact plastic used in a lot of structural parts.
I did some plastic work in a former job, so I can tell you not to use any paint remover that has MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) in it, because this is what we used to dissolve & bond ABS.

 

Cool, thanks.