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removing decals from auto free top

Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 12:56 pm
by bobngo
i,ve removed the decals that say "fulltime 4wdrive ,using a paint stripping hot air gun ,(it has 3 heat positions) set on the hottest setting, and really had to blast them close up , i was in danger of melting the paint, as they were stuck so hard.

now i want to remove the decals on the free top ( they,ve got tatty etc) but this is fibre glass or something similar, and i can,t see it taking the heat i had to use on the above .

so has anyone got any ideas what i should do to remove them .

thank in advance

Re: removing decals from auto free top

Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 1:08 pm
by chooyuhudson
Hi there I have used Mr Muscle oven cleaner. This seems to work a treat. I used the aerosol which foams up. You just leave it on for 10 minutes and then clean off. Repeat as necessary.
Regards David

Re: removing decals from auto free top

Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 1:20 pm
by Scott
Did mine last week, I used the missus's hair dryer and slowly peeled them off. If you heat it too much the vinyl stretches and it breaks so you just have to heat it enough to loosen the glue.

It left a lot of glue residue on the roof that I started to remove with autoglym tar remover but remembered Cabte saying to use petrol, bit of petrol on a rag, leave for a few mins and rub off with a clean rag worked perfectly :D

Re: removing decals from auto free top

Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 4:21 pm
by Dan T
Did the same as csmcqueen and pinched the wife's hairdryer. Took me about 3 hours to get both sides peeled and de-glued (used white spirit and it worked fine...) but did scrape a small amount of the AFT paint off... if that happens you can get blank decals from firststopdecals to cover it up! Have fun!

Re: removing decals from auto free top

Posted: Fri May 21, 2010 10:20 pm
by bobngo
found (by accident ) a really easy way of removing decals, today it was really hot here (east anglia) van stood in drive with sun directly on the side i wanted to strip, by noon could,nt keep my hand on van ,too hot.

got the hot air paint stripper out ,started at front , just enought to lift one corner, then slowly slowly, pulled decal off van ,WITHOUT the use of heat gun

there were one or two bits it did,nt get off, but i would say i removed 99% by this method, very little glue to clean up !!!

so on a hot day the sun,s heat is enough to do it .once you get it started, and pull very slow

Re: removing decals from auto free top

Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 8:25 am
by cabte
Love it when a plan works ..
its nice to have a hot day when removing decals make light work.
but the sun is a pain in the ass when to hot when applying decals,,

Re: removing decals from auto free top

Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 9:58 pm
by chipvan
need to do this on ours! thAnks guys