repairing brake fluid damaged body?

I am looking at buying a vehicle that was vandalized with brake fluid
all over one side of it. I'm not too concerned about appearance, I'm
thinking about just cleaning it and painting it over with some matching
spray paint. Is there anything I should be worried about? Could the
metal have been damaged in some way? How should I prep the metal
before repainting it, other than maybe brush off any rust and primer
it?

Also some painted plastic was damaged, will this be safe to paint over
or could the plastic have been damaged somehow?

thanks much,
-Ryan

In article .com>,
wrote:

> I am looking at buying a vehicle that was vandalized with brake fluid
> all over one side of it. I'm not too concerned about appearance, I'm
> thinking about just cleaning it and painting it over with some matching
> spray paint. Is there anything I should be worried about? Could the
> metal have been damaged in some way? How should I prep the metal
> before repainting it, other than maybe brush off any rust and primer
> it?
>
> Also some painted plastic was damaged, will this be safe to paint over
> or could the plastic have been damaged somehow?
>
> thanks much,
> -Ryan
>

Clean it up good and spray away. Since the brake fluid has already eaten
the paint, almost certainly including the primer layer, I'd suggest
flat-out stripping it to bare metal, giving it an acetone or MEK wash
"just to be sure", and starting from scratch. Brake fluid dissolves
paint, but to the best of my knowledge, unless it's some exotic alloy
that's hyper-reactive (not likely on bodywork, I'd say), metal doesn't
even notice it.

The plastic bits *MAY* be more of a problem, depending on what type of
plastic is involved - Some plastics ignore brake fluid the same as metal
does, some melt into sludge almost instantly on contact with it, and
others fall somewhere in between. Which ones are which, and which ones
were used for the bits that got vandalized? <shrug> Your guess is as
good as mine.

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