Fox Campus plastic and harsh abrasives??

markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#1
#1
Just received Box 1 of the Fox campus I bought. I need to start removing half assed paint job off the plastic parts. I'm OK with having to paint if nessasary I figure there is bound to be something ugly somewhere under the custom paint.

The black is actually almost peeling off in sheets, I got most of the black off the one fender already. the silver is down pretty good. I hit it lightly in the cabinet with glass bead and its holding pretty good.

anyone have ideas :shrug: I dont want to soften or distort the plastic and I would like to keep sanding down to a minimum for the same reasons as well. Hopefully I can get it all off there, as I should probably use an adhesion promoter and maybe even a flex agent in the paint

 
buckeye

buckeye

Well-Known Member
#2
#2
Wish I could help. I have a great pair of fenders the plastic has yellowed. Don't know wheather to sand, soak in bleech, let the sun.shine handle it or paint.
 
capguncowboy

capguncowboy

Well-Known Member
#3
#3
Goof off aerosol spray works pretty good for spray paint removal. Just use an old rag and it wipes off pretty easily.

If it's a semi-decent paint (spray gun quality), it can be a little stubborn sometimes, but it gives in eventually
 
KustomKartKid

KustomKartKid

Administrator
#4
#4
The guys who collect vintage models and slot cars use 100% Pinesol to strip off the old paint and decals without harming the plastic body...you need enough to actually submerge the part overnight, not just wipe it on.
 
ogygopsis

ogygopsis

#6
#6
Markus, The plastic parts of the Fox Campus bikes are made of polyethylene. Google has quite a few good articles concerning removing paint from polyethylene. Hope this helps. Ogy
 
markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#7
#7
thanks for the tips guys, Ogy I'll start googling info on the Poly :thumbsup:

Shes a brushpaint special but it appears to be mostly there minus the headlight..so hopefully its all clean enough to make something out of......still waiting for box 2 to arrive though :doah:
 
ogygopsis

ogygopsis

#8
#8
Excellent find Markus. Except for the headlight; everything appears to be there. If you will allow me to make one tiny suggestion. Upon re-assembly you might want to rotate the rear shocks 180 degrees. They're on upside down...lol. I've seen your work and something tells me this is going to be a first class Fox Campus restoration. Ogy
 
ogygopsis

ogygopsis

#10
#10
Havasu Dave said:
Brake fluid. I've never used it, but saw it on a car show, removing paint from a plastic grill. Soak for a day.
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Dave, I've heard of using brake fluid but I'm wondering if it might discolor the polyethylene or impregnate the plastic thereby making any future painting impossible. Any thoughts? Ogy
 
H

Havasu Dave

Moderator
#11
#11
ogygopsis said:
Dave, I've heard of using brake fluid but I'm wondering if it might discolor the polyethylene or impregnate the plastic thereby making any future painting impossible. Any thoughts? Ogy
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I just googled it, and it was a mustang grill on "muscle car" TV show.

In their segment, it worked great. I agree Ogy, there's no way you'd want to do that, if you planned on painting it again.

It would probably make a good restoration coating for ABS though.
 
markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#13
#13
using brake fluid might not really matter since after googleing around it looks like the way to get best adhesion of paint it should be "flame treated" which pulls all the oils/realease agents out of the plastic. this out to be fun, me, a handheld torch, a bottle of acohol, alcohol soaked rag, and a delicate plastic part :laugh: Should have the house burned done in no time:devil2: at least then I wont have to worry about trying to make paint stick anymore

i did try some brush on paint remover and it does not seem to effect the plastic, whatever the silver is under the black is on there pretty good though and not coming off without a fight.
 
H

Havasu Dave

Moderator
#14
#14
There are plenty of off the shelf paint removers that are made for plastic. The brake fluid deal worked well, (Power Block TV "Dark Horse" Build) and paint prep works fine for getting it cleaned.

We used brush on stripper on some head light buckets (Plastic) to no ill effects, but it was only rattle can we were removing. I've used plastic handled paint brushes in the stuff with no ill effects.

Edit: Googled the other day to find the power block segment, not how to remove brake fluid.
 
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markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#15
#15
Box 2 of 3 arrived yesterday, this poor seller had a shipping mishap on his end... I hate to see what the shipping bill total will be for him :doah: that problem was not on my end so I'm good. They sent the bike freight on a skid....they forgot to put the forks and tire on the skid though, so now that is being shipped separately :doah:

Engine stamping appears to be a 1967, sure looks right on the bike so I will take a stab that the bike is probably of the same vintage.



Only serious issue I see other than the brushpaint is someone cut out the battery tray for some reason. I would guess by some rust staining I see maybe a battery was left up there for a long period of time and corroded the pan or something. I was bummed to see that ( I did not know that was removed), but honestly for the shipped price he offered it at I would have still sprung for it since all the other stuff is there. So I will have to fab that or at least something like it.

I tried some stripper in some spots and looks like they just slathered the paint on without even cleaning the bike so thats coming off pretty easy and thankfully they didnt bother to even take anything off to do it so its not all over the entire bike

i got it the paint off the headtube decal, serial number did not survive but the decal itself looks pretty clean still. The throttle is pretty cool, it has what I believe is the Doherty stamping cast into it. while I'm not positive it was original to the bike the brake handle assy has that stamp as well and I always find them on foxes, Throttle grip has the "made in England" and "Doherty" molded in as well, not perfect but it will clean up so I hope the dummy grip will look pretty good, If not I do have some really close repops of these with the same pattern just not marked Doherty.



So I am still waiting to see the forks and front wheel before I decide if I keep sell or toss, but its lookin' pretty good since so far its just going to be time consuming but no heavy out of pocket, which is real good because All I have is some lint in my pockets right now :doah:
 
markus

markus

Well-Known Member
#16
#16
this little project got shelved for a little bit due to the forks and front wheel never arriving from the seller. So for the past month I have been sitting here with 3/4 of a bike, not wanting to touch anything in case the bike had to go back or something like that. I got the forks and wheel finally this week so I ripped the bike all apart and started to get to strippin' the brush paint off.

Through all my reading online the plastic is pretty impervious to many things and since paint stripper didn't seem to hurt anything (just was not taking the paint off easy enough) this afternoon I just threw the chainguard in a 5 gallon bucket of basically "super clean"/purple stuff. Its the stuff that comes in a 5 gallon container, I just cut about 50% with water.

I let it soak in there for about half hour and then used an SOS pad and the garden hose to remove the 2 layers of paint. with the exception of a few stubborn pieces I need to pick at its all off with minimal work :thumbsup:

 
delray

delray

Well-Known Member
#18
#18
markus
Engine stamping appears to be a 1967, sure looks right on the bike so I will take a stab that the bike is probably of the same vintage.
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looks like it could be factory....:thumbsup:
you can see in this brochure the bike on the left has a factory big block 4hp on it.......:thumbsup:

 
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