
I got to repainting this body. I figured it had decent RC paint like Pactra, and since it was mostly good and needed only some touch-up to cover up some areas of chipped or flaked off paint, I got some leftover Tamiya black and sprayed over the existing black. The body was originally painted with the common "lazy black everywhere" paint job, including the windows. Unfortunately, not long after I sprayed on the black overcoat, I could see the Tamiya paint was reacting with whatever was already there. In those areas like the corners, I was able to wipe up sections with a toothbrush.
I supposed the original paint was therefore NOT Pactra, and began soaking tissues in DOT 3 brake fluid and left the bunched-up tissues on the body shell. After several hours, I was able to remove large portions of the original black paint with a toothbrush, X-Acto knife (on the inside) and my fingernails (on the outside). I also discovered there was a LOT of black overspray on the outside of the body...something you wouldn't really notice with an all-black paint job. I've been at it for almost 2 days now but I'm almost finished. It takes a lot of patience because each round of DOT 3 tissue soaking takes hours of waiting before you can brush or scrape off more of the paint, but I'm actually glad. Now I can do a nicer paint job with good paint and have clear windows. I'm no fan of box-art, especially not the original box-art design with silver areas to go with the black & gold, I don't think silver works with black & gold. I'll probably come up with something that's mostly black but maybe I'll add some subtle gold trim or gold pearl.