How to prep interior for dye over painted vinyl?

[Gary K.]

Mostly original black vinyl standard interior was painted beige in 1975. Has held up really well but now I want to restore back to black. I know about special cleansers, surface prep and paints. Was going to go with SEM products.

Question is do I do all those steps (with expensive products) over the old paint or try to take old paint off first? I don't want to harm the parts themselves but I need good adhesion. I tried a mild eco-friendly mineral spirits on a test area and absolutely no paint came off. Don't really want to get too aggressive...

Any comments much appreciated.

[Russ S.]

Re: How to prep interior for dye over painted vinyl?

Just use a plastic cleaner and then spray it.

[Dennis D.]

Re: How to prep interior for dye over painted vinyl?

Chances are that if the paint has held up well, it is more than likely elastomeric paint. Which is exactly what Sem is. There isn't dye for vinyl. So just prep as was suggested, and recoat.

[Floyd B.]

Re: How to prep interior for dye over painted vinyl?

I will eventually face the same problem when I attempt to restore my bright blue interior back to original - one of the previous owners changed the color to black. I don't want to simply spray yet another layer of coating over the parts. The "grain" in the plastic parts has already been muted and I expect that another coat will make the surface on these parts almost perfectly smooth. They sure won't look as original.

I haven't experimented much with finding a way to remove the black coating but the few chemicals I've tried have had no affect. I've tried oven cleaner (lye), 90% rubbing alcohol, denatured alcohol, mineral spirits, acetone, naphtha and lacquer remover. A few of these managed to show a bit of black on the rag but nothing has come close to removing it. I was planning on trying Captian Lee's Auto Spra' Strip next. Unfortunately I don't know what was used to paint/dye the interior but it is somewhat soft to the touch like vinyl. If anyone has had success removing this type coating I would love to here what chemicals and process you used.

[Dennis D.]

Re: How to prep interior for dye over painted vinyl?

lacquer thinner should break down the paint, but you may destroy the vinyl. Especially on the hard plastic parts. I would imagine that stripper would be even worse

[Floyd B.]

Re: How to prep interior for dye over painted vinyl?

I was planning to try Captain Lee's on a small inconspicuous spot. Since it is designed not to react with fiberglass resins I am hoping it will yield similar results on vinyl and plastic.