Suzuki 2 Strokes

This is for the ’72 GT550 cafe project.
The ram air covers has some sort of black “tar” insulation on the underside. At first I thought that some PO did this. But I checked the covers on eBay — early covers have this “tar” and later covers don’t.

I plan on polishing & clear coating the covers. Need to remove this “tar”. Any suggestions on how to do this?

GT550-ram-air-0777 by jabcb, on Flickr

Yes i have the same on my 550J . i think its an attempt at sound insulation, years ago people would paint underseal on the inside of the car bonnet (hood) for the same reason. I would start with a wire brush to penetrate the coating then maybe some kind of solvent or paint stripper.

Before that, maybe heat gun and scraper?

Put it in a bath of petrol gas.
Let it soak a while.