bluejuice
New Member
What a mission but I finally removed the protective door strips I read lotsa posts on how to do it, thought this may help someone else. Being a sign maker I thought this will be quick and easy as I'm used to removing old vinyl stickers but it wasn't quick. I need to put some advertising graphics on the door and didn't want to go over the rubber which the vinyl doesn't stick to anyway.
There was 2 lines of stuff sticking it to the car a top line that was a soft foam that came off easily with some orange based goo remover and this top line can easily be cut theough by fishing wire.... But below it was another line of solid black hard rubber stuff, cause the black rubber stuff is so hard it couln't be cut by fishing line or guitar strings as I'd read about using. I got a heat gun on low and warmed up the outside of protective strip then used half a peg as it has a wedge shape to seperate the strip from the door. Once i got a couple of cm free I aimed the heat gun between the strip and the door and pulled the strip off moving the heat gun along the door as I pulled off the strip that was easy. I was now left with the 2 lines of stuff that had held it on. For the soft top line a few sprays of orange based goo remover wait a few minutes then scraped it of with an old credit card.
Goo remover didnt touch this hard rubber stuff, nor did 70% alcohol, methylated spirits, white spirits, prepsol or kerosene I ended up using a litre of petrol, old credit card and rag I rubbed the petrol on soaking it for a couple of minutes and used the edge of the credit card to remove a thin layer of the rubber then put on more petrol to soften another layer of the rubber and so on. It took about 10 to 15 of these scrapes to take it down to a really thin layer I then just kept rubbing away with petrol and a rag until the black was gone. Took about 4 hours all up I did try a box cutter knife blade but scratched the paint a couple of times so went back to the credit card. I reckon one of those rubber wheels you can put on a drill would have heated up the paint too much from friction as the black stuff (? silicon) was so hard.
There was 2 lines of stuff sticking it to the car a top line that was a soft foam that came off easily with some orange based goo remover and this top line can easily be cut theough by fishing wire.... But below it was another line of solid black hard rubber stuff, cause the black rubber stuff is so hard it couln't be cut by fishing line or guitar strings as I'd read about using. I got a heat gun on low and warmed up the outside of protective strip then used half a peg as it has a wedge shape to seperate the strip from the door. Once i got a couple of cm free I aimed the heat gun between the strip and the door and pulled the strip off moving the heat gun along the door as I pulled off the strip that was easy. I was now left with the 2 lines of stuff that had held it on. For the soft top line a few sprays of orange based goo remover wait a few minutes then scraped it of with an old credit card.
Goo remover didnt touch this hard rubber stuff, nor did 70% alcohol, methylated spirits, white spirits, prepsol or kerosene I ended up using a litre of petrol, old credit card and rag I rubbed the petrol on soaking it for a couple of minutes and used the edge of the credit card to remove a thin layer of the rubber then put on more petrol to soften another layer of the rubber and so on. It took about 10 to 15 of these scrapes to take it down to a really thin layer I then just kept rubbing away with petrol and a rag until the black was gone. Took about 4 hours all up I did try a box cutter knife blade but scratched the paint a couple of times so went back to the credit card. I reckon one of those rubber wheels you can put on a drill would have heated up the paint too much from friction as the black stuff (? silicon) was so hard.
