Removing Power Coat

After you apply your paint remover to part, cover it with Saran wrap (plastic food wrap), it made a big difference for me!

I removed the clear, powder-coat from 2 polished truck wheels after the calcium chloride road de-icer got to them. They looked awful. First, I'll say it wasn't easy or quick but in the end looked pretty good. As I remember, and I might have got the sequence wrong, like many of you, I started with "Aircraft" paint stripper. Nada. Then tried lacquer thinner. Nada. Then carburetor cleaner, umm softened it up after a while. Then after the softening, I used brake cleaner along with the stiff, small wire brush and a few more applications of carburetor cleaner. Hours later it looked good enough to polish. The goo clogs up the wire brush so it took several of those and careful application of a putty knife. This is a good argument for not powder coating. Well-applied paint lasts for decades. It's also way easier to polish corroded aluminum than to get the powder coat off.

I think the long term solution is to bathe the wheels in calcium chloride de-icer for a winter. Out West here that's what the states have begun using the last decade. It's more environmentally friendly, I'm told. That stuff is double the corrosiveness of, say, Michigan road salt. I'm wondering what it does to the bridges. Maybe after a good bath in that then Glenn's black powder coat ... it'll just flake off.