Restoring something different (sentimental value)

[ranger_mclaren]

OK... I love bicycles have two GTs have one free style mountaine bike I beat on, and I had a mint GT Hot Wheels collector edition bmx bike.(which I never ride) Well I took the bmx and my girl friends bikes over to my moms for storage because I needed the room in my garage ( I never let my MX outta site got 4k into it!)
to make a long story short my brother borrowed my bmx without permission and it got stolen I was pissed!!!! Well about a week ago my brother said he found it at the police station and went retrived it for me heres what it looks like now:

The rims and tires have been changed they don't make the Hotwheel tires any more or the red rims so those won't be replaced plus the GT racing Hot wheels seat is now gone too. other than that Its all here but been spary painted over does anyone know how to take spry paint off without ruining the paint or decals undernieth? my Dad suggested rubbing alcohol, I figured wet sand paper do you have any ideas so I can try to restore it?

 

[ranger_mclaren]

Well I'm kinda going to make this my restore'build thread for those of you who give a crap, finally got around to taking it apart I tried using rubbing alcohol at first which works great on parts that have a thin coat of spray paint on them but for the double layerd like the frame and bars it's going to take so other type of work probly some light wet sant paper then should be able to use the alcohol. heres theres the progress on the head set which had one coat:

Then heres the brake lever which is double coated some progress made but going to move to sand paper soon as I get to wal-mart:

I'm still open for ideas if anyone knows some other way that might be faster and before anyone says "Aircraft remover" I'm not going that extreme... unless theres no chance of it getting better.

 

[mentalbreakdown00]

man that sucks, but I have no idea what to tell you, other then my bro would have a missing tooth, or three..........

 

[ambivolent]

man that sucks my bro had a his GT performer stolen about 3 months later my dad seen some kid riding a bright orange GT(only one in town) to a convenience store and while the kid was in the store he checked the serial and a mark we put on the frame and sure enough it was ours so he just put the bike in his truck and called the cops the other bike was an old '89 Black GT Aggressor the rare one but the thief was caught in the act and sent to the pokey for a little vacation

http://bmxmuseum.com/bikes/gt_bicycles/7425
if you never seen one this is a different '89 GT Aggressor

 

[scotts90ranger]

try starting fluid or brake parts cleaner, that should work better than rubbing alcohol

 

[ranger_mclaren]

Thanks for the info guys I'll give the other cleaners a try thanks!
Heres what it should look like found this on craigslist going to look into buying it to save me the trouble.

 

[odie1969]

Thanks for the info guys I'll give the other cleaners a try thanks!
Heres what it should look like found this on craigslist going to look into buying it to save me the trouble.

looks like little bro gets to buy you the bike off CL, No matter the price. sorry to hear about it. hope you are able to get the replacment bike.

 

[dangerranger911]

try some naphtha but on a part that is not in plain sight. its pretty strong so make sure you wear gloves.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I used bug and tar remover on some bedliner drips on the side of my Ranger, it worked great and didn't phase the paint at all.

 

[ranger_mclaren]

Started working on the frame this week sorry no pics looks like person riped off the stickers so I'm probley going to stip paint off it and repaint it and build it for ramp jumping or somthing. Pointless as a collectors bike now.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Different seat, wheels, paint, I assume the serial # is gone too... how do you know it is yours?

 

[ranger_mclaren]

they didn't make very many of these and ther you can see the some paint through were the some spray paint rubed off has same paint scheme, peddles, frame, gt racing cable etc. someone like me or my brother who is into bikes would reconize.

 

[Psychopete]

Sucks to hear man, in my old neighborhood - I couldn't keep even a bike built from junk (trash, other bikes, etc). I hate people who steal, and they're usually pretty damn ballsy about taking stuff too. I am really surprised you got it back even, the only thing I've gotten back was a minibike, and we seen some guy riding on it about a mile away and followed him home - called the cops and got it back. This was in the middle of the city, thankfully he didn't get it impounded.

Pete