Series 1 Paint removal

What’s the best/safest way of removing paint from the body of the series?

have 2 wings, door tops and screen in bronze green. These are replacements for badly damaged or non existent parts.
But the car is a faded shade of Tuscan blue which will be the cars new colour when it gets painted.

It’s getting new rear tub sides, with templates taken off the “Ben Nevis” 80” that climbed it in the 80s, bulkhead repairs and a new roll cage for trials use.

so will get repainted next year after that works been done.

If the paint is well stuck to the ally I would leave it there. Sand it but not to the metal, a grey blocking coat then the colour.

rob1miles said:

If the paint is well stuck to the ally I would leave it there. Sand it but not to the metal, a grey blocking coat then the colour.

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I would second this. You only need to remove the paint if the paint is already flaking. if the paint is in good condition just prep it for an overcoat.

Paint on the bonnet is flaking and front panel needs a repair to lower area as it’s split. Which is annoying.

A.J.M said:

Paint on the bonnet is flaking and front panel needs a repair to lower area as it’s split. Which is annoying.

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If the paint is flaking then rub it down until not more is flaking, then a high build primer to "fill" the difference in paint layers, rub down again and then top coat. I still wouldn't be stripping back to bare metal. Far to much expense and effort for no real gain imo.

Brilliant.
Thanks for the advice.

as you will have gathered.
Never done anything like this before so series ownership is a nice learning curve.

Getting paint to stick to ally is not simple and it takes special (ie chromate) primers so if you have paint that well stuck on its the best base to put the new piant on. You just want to cover everying in a dense blanking coat (usually grey) so the different base colours don't show through.

stripping back to bare metal is a lot of effort and expense it does give a better looking job but I would agree its not that much better cf. the level of effort, only worth it if you are doing a concours show job on a fully restored vehicle.

it is also easy to make marks or ripples on the metal surface if you are overly aggressive