Hooked to life (UPDATE: still has original black paint!)

Note to Jon Lee:
Dad had a tow service in the 1950s. His prize wrecker was a 1930 LaSalle factory built closed cab tow truck. Originally a dealership truck I understood. It would really pull a load. He got calls when the ordinary hook rigs were too light for the jobs!
It carried wire wheels, not the usually seen wood spokes. Unlike flower cars, it had a separate wrecker bed not afixed to the cab. I've been looking for it since the 1970s but suspect it met its demise after dad sold it off.
Best Regards.

thanks Jon, I'll try thinner or oven cleaner, (I have both). hopefully I can dissolve the paint. Someone told me to use Brake Fluid too.
Zurdo

Hi Zurdo,
We removed the red paint, which was an old style house paint, as best we could determine, using oven cleaner. The oven cleaner must be the type with lye, and I don't know how available this is in other areas. One has to move quite quickly, doing small areas at a time and have lots of water at hand to rinse. We have done a couple of old cars this way and have salvaged quite a bit of original finish. I don't know how well it would work with an acrylic finish. Acrylic lacquer would disolve with thinner, with some effort; Acrylic enamel is tough stuff and you may well end up refinishing the engine compartment. Good luck with it.
Jon Lee

what a treasure! some 1930's cars have a certain appeal to me that I can't describe, and to think it's a converted LaSalle. I bet there will be heavy bidding. I hope you can get it back Jon.

question: how do you remove brushed-on paint? I am trying to tackle the same problem on a small Jaguar engine compartment part that someone painted with a brush and acrylic paint, but without destroying the original factory paint underneath. thanks for any tips.
Zurdo

This is a really neat old rig. It was owned for many years by the Norton, Massachusetts fire department. The story is that it was donated to the fire department in 1935. The back was cut off (it was actually a four-door sedan and not a coupe), a fifth wheel was mounted to haul a formerly-horse-drawn ladder. It served in that capacity for nearly 30 years. In the early sixties the fire department sold it to the late Tom Mix who, in turn, sold it on to a couple of friends of mine. When one died, the other fellow brought it here to Maine where it sat in his barn for 20+ years. I got it from him about a dozen years ago for cash and restoration work on his '37 Buick Roadmaster Convertible Sedan.
When we got it, the finish was a really bad brush job in red house paint. This we carefully removed, leaving the original (about 90%) black paint including the white stripe. The catalog gives the impression that it was repainted black, but what you see in the pictures is mostly original black 1932 GM paint. There was nothing mounted on the back of the car, so we cleaned it up and mounted the period wrecker boom, push bumper and lights. Another good friend saw it, fell in love with it and it went back to Massachusetts. He did more to it, added some neat bits and used it as a push truck for his vintage sprint car.
The LaSalle still has fewer than 40,000 miles showing, and it's still a slick rig. I'm going to go to the auction to see if I can buy it back.
Jon Lee