Tailgate stripping

I'm getting ahead of myself but I am in near-permanent internet mode these days. I've seen some pix of people pulling their wood grain and it appears that there is usually nice factory paint underneath, except for around the door handles and gas filler. I am thinking of pulling the wood grain off the tailgate only, and will not be putting it back on. Is there a good chance that I'll find snowy white paint under there? Should I use heat or try without? I want to preserve some of the tailgate wood grain to make little patches out of (don't ask). I understand there could be poorly prepared surfaces from the factory or even collision damage but I'm willing to take the risk. I am sure I'll have to get rid of excess cement and buff out and wax the underlying paint. Anybody wanna calculate the risk vs. just leaving well enough alone?

I took off all of our woodgrain on the 96 RMW and also found some not so great bodywork.  Right front fender and door were the worst.  Left front fender had a little bondo.  Only rust, not through or bad was at pull holes in the RF fender and at screwed on SST trim on the RF door. Right side took a lot of shaping and fill and sand to get looking right as the fender crease was right at the top outer corner bend.  The rest of the car had nice factory paint under the wood grain.  The wood grain trim was pretty beat up from door dings and probably some hail, so got rid of it all and welded up the well over 100 moulding holes.  No has painted "panels" a modified version of the woodgrain locations.

It is like any package that you get...you have to open it to find out what is in it. You can use a hairdryer to soften the glue. You will probably not get much that is reusable. You may be able to polish out the tan paint, because it is on top of the base color. The paint under the woodgrain should be in reasonably good condition. You may find some dings and bumps under it. The woodgrain does a good job of disguising any imperfections.

When you pull off the stickers there should be perfect paint under there. The brown will be mostly covered up by the license plate.

94Woody wrote:

When you pull off the stickers there should be perfect paint under there. The brown will be mostly covered up by the license plate.

It looks like you left an open hole at the right end of the gate, or is it just hard to tell? You are lucky, I had all the SST beltline trim to fill also, bit job.

Looks like you have small dent in the bottom of the quarter panel. I had similar, but right on the tapering bend that blends flat into the wheel lip. I bet it took me 10 tries to get that shape to look right!

So glad my Olds didn't come with woodgrain, I was never a fan of it.

You mean there is some brown in the license plate indent? I thought it was only under the door handles and filler cap. Say it ain't so!! That would really suck.

dwardo wrote:

You mean there is some brown in the license plate indent? I thought it was only under the door handles and filler cap. Say it ain't so!! That would really suck.

Yes. You can see it in the picture I posted.

booster wrote:

94Woody wrote:

When you pull off the stickers there should be perfect paint under there. The brown will be mostly covered up by the license plate.

It looks like you left an open hole at the right end of the gate, or is it just hard to tell?  You are lucky, I had all the SST beltline trim to fill also, bit job.

Looks like you have small dent in the bottom of the quarter panel.  I had similar, but right on the tapering bend that blends flat into the wheel lip.  I bet it took me 10 tries to get that shape to look right!

Yes, the trim holes were not filled in and there was dent, one in the gate as well. That picture is from 2010 and the car never made it much farther in the body work department. Sold it in 14 to a forum member.

Sigh. Thanks. I'm still gonna start with stripping the license plate insert. It's starting to crack and peel anyway.