Stripping a dash

Along with way someone decided to do a color change on this old girl. Car was orginally gold on gold. When they painted the exterior red someone went crazy with black dye or spray paint on the interior. Since the plasticizers in '69-'71 dash pads are known to come to the surface and create a sticky goo you can imagine what happened when they painted it. Yup, we have a black sticky goo covering everything. It's like tar in spots. Flat black spray paint also coats the plastic bezels, including the raised lettering, with a generous amount of overspray on the switches and clear lenses. What a mess!

I picked up a cluster/bezel on ebay that was described as one of the best original speciman's the seller had ever seen - better than most he had seen at car shows. Silly me.

Seller thought this was better than most he'd seen at car shows. Hmmm, really?

Fortunately, UPS broke it in shipping so I got my money back and rather than throw it away  it became a donor for a few select parts.

Anyway, back to stripping. Lacquer thinner does a decent job of dissolving dried spray paint but it can also attack some types of plastic. No problem on the dash pad and useable on the vacuum plated bezel if done carefully but it will cloud clear lenses. Also, at $15+ per gallon it can get expensive. I think I've found something better.  I found a product at Lowes called Motsenbocker's Lift Off 4 - Spray Paint/Graffiti Remover. It's water based, biodegradable, and contains no nasty solvents. While I'm certainly no tree hugger the stuff works surprisingly well and is easy on the nose and skin. It dissolved all the paint right down to the vacuum plating which I wiped off with paper towels after multiple applications. Should work on the dash pad too.