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I got this car off of ebay, $65 shipped RTR (supposedly).
the arms are blackish but they don't appear evenly dyed, nor do they appear painted.
After looking around at various parts, it seems that a marker was used to color the parts. it has faded, and you can see some areas, especially in recesses or next to ridges, that were not reached by the marker tip,
Has anyone seen one like this before?
I tried mineral spirits, but that did not do anything. A few minutes in denatured alcohol turned the liquid purple, but didn't get much off the parts without a lot of rubbing. lastly I tired good ol' oven cleaner and after a 20 minute soak and a quick scrub with a toothbrush the black was gone and the parts had an even red hue to them. The parts were then dyed in black rit, and look much better.
-Anthony

i got this one off of ebay for $20. someone painted the suspension parts with i believe testors model paint. the wheels, too. i soaked the parts in lacquer thinner, and scrubed it off with an acid brush. the parts were all shot, but they cleaned up.

before and after

I don't know about using the marker to "color" the parts, but you can use the felt inside a sharpie to dye parts. Just take the felt out, cut it open, and put it in the water just like RIT. I use blue sharpies on my parts because the color matches RPM parts better than RIT.

In this pic the rear bumper was dyed with a sharpie, the other parts are RPM.