I have been removing factory paint from my diesels for painting my private road paint scheme and have been using 99% alchohol with very good results. My latest project is an old AHM E8. I do not know how old,but it has a vertical open cage motor driving just the rear two axles of the rear truck. I soaked the shell in alchohol for over an hour and it did not even touch the paint.
I was wondering if anyone else has had this experience with old shell paint before. I ended up wet sanding,priming and airbrushing over the factory paint. It turned out pretty good, but some of the finer detail is not as crisp due to the three layers of primer and paint.