Rat's Ride - 1974 RA21 Celica

For the remainder of the day I decided to take a little of the 1974 out of my 70s machine. I've already decided that I'm not putting the padded dash back over the clean lines of the metal dash. That may actually mean a step backwards in time rather than forwards... but I digress.

We're talkin woodgrain on the gauge cluster. Here it is halfway removed because I always forget the before picture. I was using a heat gun and a small flatblade screwdriver to heat up the grain then peel it back. You can sometimes get bigger pieces but for the most part it's slow going in small chunks. Underneath is a layer of adhesive. Depending on the climate your car lived in, I gather from reading, this adhesive could either be attached to the woodgrain or it could stay on the plastic when you peel the grain up... guess which way mine went.

So when I was done going through the process of heating and peeling for a second time I hit the whole front face with brake cleaner and a gray scotch brite pad. This was the chosen combo mainly just because it was readily available. I washed the brake cleaner off quick with some heavily diluted Mr. Clean to hopefully project the plastic from getting soft. To do it the right way I'd say some goo gone would be in order. But that's ONLY after you have peeled up as much adhesive as possible. Just rubbing anything on top of that stuff doesn't touch it.

I only got a little pushy with the screwdriver once. Hot plastic and a blade of anything don't really mix and I put a pretty good dent in it but I was able to sand it down just a touch. It's noticeable but probably only if you are looking for it.

Next step for this thing is to mask off the gauges and put some semi gloss on it. I'd really like to find some in dark gray so I'm going to spend some time looking around.