Pontiac Owners Club UK

I'm continuing to strip my 78 t/a back to bare metal.

I also need to 'somehow' strip the nose cone! What's the best method without damaging the cone itself?

Thanks

lots of sanding!

If it has crazed paint the entire painted layer will need to be removed otherwise the crazing will return in a matter of weeks never mind months or years. You will have to expect cracks and crazing in the paintwork however, as I have not yet seen a T/A without it, even after a £30,000 restoration and expensive paint job. It always comes back.

in terms of not damaging the nose cone, just use the finest abrasive you can that will do the job and I would do it by hand rather than with a machine. Ive never heard of anybody using paint stripper on the nose cone, so not sure if the material used to make it would be degraded by the stripper, but personally I would never use stripper on anything like that.

Thanks for the tip. Removing the current paint layer is a must! That's me busy this weekend!

Work has begun….progressing nicely!!

What's it made of

Pontiac called it Endura, I think it's a polyurethane composite.

Great link here: http://www.goatsgarage.com/bumplft.html

I worked for a company for many years preparing and painting polyurethane mouldings.
Strange with people saying the paint is always cracking and it certainly is like crazy paving on the one I am buying. The material is usually very stable.
When I get the car home I will have a good look at it and that might be on the list for the first bit of restoration

I've never seen one yet that hasn't crazed or cracked within 2 years of a paint job. The material in places is only a few mm thick and so it's doesn't just flex a little bit, it flexes a lot! You can deflect the material in places by up to 10mm. It's no surprise that paint goes crazed.

Mmmmm just read the link thanks for that.Niw I see why so many are cracked. There are many types of PU and this one seems to have a lot of flexibility.
Not using primers and paints suitable for that are going to cause problems if I can find some UK alternatives I will post them up

Looks like if you have cracks in the endura when you have removed the paint that they need to be veed with a dreamed. The 3M filler referred to in the goats garage link is available in the UK and Flexible Stopper is on Ebay for finishing off minor imperfectons.
Too vee out the cracks in mine is going to be time consuming I think. But if this what it takes