Remove hammerite from plastic trim pieces?

[JayKay3000]

Hi All.

So in my last owners infinite wisdom he decided to paint all the Grey plastic bits with what looks like white hammerite paint. Really, you can see brush marks on the moldings and from 10 feet away it looks ok. Except it was done a while ago and probably never prepped and is starting to peel. I've seen a couple and think these look OK color coded, but this one has seen better days... I mean, really. The photo makes it look too good!

I'm interested in removing this stuff from the moldings and maybe painting the moldings black rattle cans since I don't really want to pay £30 + a piece for each plastic trim item. The wheel trims need doing because some look OK, but a couple are starting to really peel and white looks bad enough with it being dirty without random peeled splodges on them. I really like the stock OEM pieces and it's a shame they've been trashed. Even the steel wheels have been painted white with some pretty yucky runs.

The picture is about 9 months, taken on the first day I picked it up old and since then the front bumper is looking awful from motorway use and a winter in Wales.

How hard would this task be? I do have a car to use for my commute. I could pay a bodyshop to re-spray them, but I was thinking I could at least prep the pieces to get all the yuck off them to save myself some money. I guess this will still work out cheaper than re-buying all the trim items.

Should I rub the paint off the white wheel trims and spray them silver? It looks like it might be hard.

I don't have any tools or access to a garage so give me a simple lesson and what I can expect.

[loot]

That looks like something that would never look right no matter how much work you do

Imo I'd buy 4 shiny new arches and try and but some 2011 bumpers, I'm sure paul2012 did it and it makes the car look 1000% better

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=116284&hilit

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=128295&hilit=New+Project+number+1+transit+connect

[JayKay3000]

I'll look into it, the front bumper is pretty ugly.

Might be right, I could still sell the white arches for someone else to fix rather than making them even worse.

[JayKay3000]

Just for fun I started peeling some of the hammerite paint off the front bumper and it peels right off leaving the under grey bumper exactly as it was before. No apparent primer or sanding has been done, just blobbed right on. A bit like a poor mans wrap I guess.

[pwhooftman]

you can try using a pressure washer, maybe the paint will fly off