ARGH. What a pain in the ass. The shop I contacted wanted $225 (which i thought/still think is a fair price) and to have the car for 2 days (which I thought was fairly reasonable at the time but couldn't swing because I don't have another car). Instead I did it myself.

I spent collectively about 12 hours in the garage this weekend removing the stripes from the Mustang.

The timeline:

Saturday: First I tried solvents, and left a huge mess of adhesive that got left behind requiring a deft hand and a razor blade. I still have spots where I've got glue left over, and where I have to fix the clear coat.

Then I went to O'Reillys and found out they had a 3M stripe remover wheel, which is according to the internet the best thing since sliced bread and could solve all my ills and remove the adhesive. Nope - it made a mess out of parts of the hood where it tore off all of the vinyl but left all of the adhesive behind, and if it did anything to the adhesive on the trunk lid it just moved it around. I stopped when it became obvious that it wasn't working like I wanted. (I ended up returning it for a full refund Sunday.)

All told, by this point I was about 7 hours into the project.

Finally I got wise and tried using an old hair dryer to soften the adhesive, and a credit card to peel the edges. I I did the rest of the hood and the whole roof in another hour by comparison.

Sunday: I removed the stripes on the front bumper in about a half hour. The rest of the day was spent removing adhesive from the hood, cleaning up the trunk lid, and buffing/polishing. Color/clear coat correction is where the rest of the day went, and I'm still not quite finished there. I still have to polish the roof and front bumper, and finish removing the adhesive from the hood. I also have to finish sanding the trunk lid smooth and buffing it out.

Overall I like the result, but it was hard earned. At least the exposed paint didn't oxidize enough for it to become an issue.

adhesive? --- WD-40.

Ja, those 3M wheels work great on pin stripes. Sounds like a PITA

were these aftermarket stripes?

Yup, put them on right around May/June of 2013, about 7-8 months after I got the car. Supposedly they were 3M stripes, but who knows. Professionally installed, though.

These were 10" racing stripes.

It does sound like they were the good stuff since they were so hard to remove.
I read about a trick for getting window tint off by using a clothes steamer. I wonder if it could work on stripes/decals.

I didn't think about that; I know that while the edges got pretty chipped and they turned pretty much from gloss white to matte, overall the stripes held up pretty great for how long they've been on the car.

I don't know about steam, but I'm betting that heat in general is the key here. I ended up using the hair dryer to heat and soften the adhesive, and the corner of the credit card to catch the edges of the stripe until I had enough raised that I could grab it with my fingertips and pull. The only places this technique left adhesive were where I had to work especially hard to get a purchase.

For future reference. Careful use of heat gun (not a hair dryer) to remove the vinyl. Care must be taken to avoid overheating the paint or your fingers. Get the vinyl hot enough, it will come off easily in large pieces just using your fingers.

To remove the glue, lighter fluid on lint-free blue Scott's shop towels (not paper towels). Wash the area with dawn to remove the oil from the lighter fluid and then buff to blend (if necessary) and apply fresh wax.

Good to know. I'll add WD40 and lighter fluid to my list to try when I get back at it.

I chose the hair dryer for 2 reasons:

1) I was under the impression that a heat gun gets hotter than a hair dryer. I was hoping to (and apparently did) hit a "sweet spot" where the vinyl gets hot enough to release, and the paint doesn't get cooked (of course, proper care was taken to ensure it didn't stay still for too long).

2) I have a hair dryer, while a heat gun would have necessitated a trip to Harbor Freight.

Heat and GooGone has worked for me in the past.

The trick to removing stripes is to pull them lengthways. Glue sticks if you pull it straight up but will unstick itself if you pull it horizontally. You still would have to remove some of the remaining adhesive but depending on the particular stripe a lot of it will adhere to the stripe itself. On older brittle pinstripes the wheel is usually the best, fastest way to go but creates a bit of a mess of it's own that must be cleaned up. Old Dried up stripes are going to be a PITA any way you look at them.

- I work in a bodyshop. :-)

We learned about using WD-40 when removing old self stick floor tiles. It was a PITA, but it worked. Nothing else would.

Time for new contacts.

I thought the title said "cat", and I'm thinking as I click; "What has the Vulrath got himself into now?"

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Time for new contacts.

I thought the title said "cat", and I'm thinking as I click; "What has the Vulrath got himself into now?"

Taking vinyl stripes off a cat sounds painful LOL

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
Heat and GooGone has worked for me in the past.

Like a charm.

quote:

Originally posted by Jus228:...

Taking vinyl stripes off a cat sounds painful LOL

Yep.

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
Heat and GooGone has worked for me in the past.

...and if the cat's name is "Goo", it's very effective.

quote:

Originally posted by Jus228:

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
Time for new contacts.

I thought the title said "cat", and I'm thinking as I click; "What has the Vulrath got himself into now?"

Taking vinyl stripes off a cat sounds painful LOL

Go ahead and try it, I dare you.

I never clean a loaded skunk.

quote:

Originally posted by sigmonkey:
I never clean a loaded skunk.

And Rule 1 applies to skunks at LEAST as well as it applies to firearms.

Yep.

And never clean a firearm loaded.