swanicyouth
New member
- Mar 3, 2011
- 9,388
- 0
A while ago I added a black door protector strip to my SUV to replace the factory blue body colored one that was messed up. It can be seen in these pics running horizontally midway through the door:
Note running boards as well.
It looks just OK IMHO and I couldn't get it perfectly strait. So, I decided to remove it. The strip also dripped dirty water forever when you washed the car, and I knew it must have been filthy behind that strip.
The strip came with adhesive on it - but it wasn't great. So, when I attached it, I supplemented it with this stuff:
3M Plastic and Emblem Adhesive - it holds like iron. I peeled off the strips to find this mess:
You can see how dirty under the strip was. I guess the adhesive wasn't sticking 100% across the surface:
I figured the adhesive would easily come off the paint with Griot's Adhesive Remover, right? Wrong. The factory adhesive was easily removed. The 3M stuff was like removing baked on paint or crazy glue.
I tried the Griots stuff, mineral spirits, compounding, Goo Gone, and a heat gun - nothing was touching this stuff. I tried to compound it off with microfiber - I even added some mineral spirits to the compound. Nothing was evening softening it up. In a moment of desperation I even reached for a RAZOR BLADE. But, I decided that's crazy and not to use it.
I didn't take any pictures of the process, because I was freaking out because I couldn't remove this 3M stuff. Finally, I did find a way to remove this stuff, so, I thought I'd share it here in case anyone runs into this issue.
The way I was FINALLY and SAFELY able to remove this adhesive was soaking it with mineral spirits, heating it with a heat gun until the mineral spirits started to evaporate (smoking off the panel), and then carefully scrubbing it (still using heat gun) with a microfiber applicator soaked in mineral spirits with a blob of compound on it.
I burned my fingers throughout the process with the heat gun. As, if you didn't keep heating while "scrubbing" - it didn't work. It's like it would only work above a certain temperature.
It seems heat and mineral spirits separately wouldn't work - but if the adhesive was quite hot it became more sensitive to mineral spirits and the compound. The adhesive never got soft, it kind of came off in little flakes - like paint would.
So, I was able to finally remove this stuff. Here are some after pics. I also removed the running boards while I was at it - one less thing to clean.
New look: no black guards or running boards:
So, my advice to anyone adding any type of emblem to their vehicles would be to stay away from the 3M stuff unless you plan on the emblem being permanent. Luckily, I only used the adhesive sparingly when I applied it. I couldn't imagine if it was slathered all over the place.
Next up, I will be getting the rust fixed you can see in picture #4 around the wheel well.
Note running boards as well.
It looks just OK IMHO and I couldn't get it perfectly strait. So, I decided to remove it. The strip also dripped dirty water forever when you washed the car, and I knew it must have been filthy behind that strip.
The strip came with adhesive on it - but it wasn't great. So, when I attached it, I supplemented it with this stuff:
3M Plastic and Emblem Adhesive - it holds like iron. I peeled off the strips to find this mess:
You can see how dirty under the strip was. I guess the adhesive wasn't sticking 100% across the surface:
I figured the adhesive would easily come off the paint with Griot's Adhesive Remover, right? Wrong. The factory adhesive was easily removed. The 3M stuff was like removing baked on paint or crazy glue.
I tried the Griots stuff, mineral spirits, compounding, Goo Gone, and a heat gun - nothing was touching this stuff. I tried to compound it off with microfiber - I even added some mineral spirits to the compound. Nothing was evening softening it up. In a moment of desperation I even reached for a RAZOR BLADE. But, I decided that's crazy and not to use it.
I didn't take any pictures of the process, because I was freaking out because I couldn't remove this 3M stuff. Finally, I did find a way to remove this stuff, so, I thought I'd share it here in case anyone runs into this issue.
The way I was FINALLY and SAFELY able to remove this adhesive was soaking it with mineral spirits, heating it with a heat gun until the mineral spirits started to evaporate (smoking off the panel), and then carefully scrubbing it (still using heat gun) with a microfiber applicator soaked in mineral spirits with a blob of compound on it.
I burned my fingers throughout the process with the heat gun. As, if you didn't keep heating while "scrubbing" - it didn't work. It's like it would only work above a certain temperature.
It seems heat and mineral spirits separately wouldn't work - but if the adhesive was quite hot it became more sensitive to mineral spirits and the compound. The adhesive never got soft, it kind of came off in little flakes - like paint would.
So, I was able to finally remove this stuff. Here are some after pics. I also removed the running boards while I was at it - one less thing to clean.
New look: no black guards or running boards:
So, my advice to anyone adding any type of emblem to their vehicles would be to stay away from the 3M stuff unless you plan on the emblem being permanent. Luckily, I only used the adhesive sparingly when I applied it. I couldn't imagine if it was slathered all over the place.
Next up, I will be getting the rust fixed you can see in picture #4 around the wheel well.
