on one of my projects i have to replace the doors .. the replacement ones i was able to get hold of have stickers on them that are reflective and have prolly been on the doors for 22 years. . they are heavy duty stickers placed by the county on a municipal truck. the doors are a tad oxidized and weathered but are rust free . I want to remove the stickers without damaging the paint as i wont be painting the entire truck for at least nine months, but i need to hang these doors as soon as possible
any ideas how to do this?

 

heat gun! but not too much heat you ruin the paint!



and use some kind of plastic like a spreader to peel it off

 

I've had good luck using a hair dryer. They are hot but not too hot.

 

ok well i didnt feel like working today on peoples houses so when i got home from scoping out some new work i decided to play with my newly acquired doors
the passenger door had the sticker painted over who knows how long ago with some black spray paint the driver door was just the bare sticker

I decided to try the cheap way out which was to snag the old lady's hair dryer when she was sleeping and sit downstairs and start heating up stickers
I tried the passenger door first which went great.. i would set the hair dryer on high and then i started scraping with the 6" putty knife and once i started it the thing went well it came off in a bunch of pieces most no bigger than an inch square and actually after starting the peeling with the scraper, i used my fingers to get rid of the rest of it
After i finished the passenger door i started in on the drivers one. this one had no paint on the sticker and as it started to come off it left some whitish residue in the corner. I started doing this one the exact same way i did the other one,, suddenly the paint started peeling.. i tried starting in a different area thinking maybe there was a scratch through the sticker into the paint, but the whole thing came off paint and all.. Im going to spray some paint over the area for now with a spray bomb so i can hang the doors for the winter, but what im concerned about is was this door improperly prepped or something? should i have the whole door sanded out and then reprime or will i be able to just feather the edge of where the paint ends and do the little ding body work and just go from there?? any advice appreciated

 

You should sand the door smooth, removing the layer that not not stick, at a min. My guess is like yours, poor paint prep. Sanding will show if the door has had a previous body work done. But if it pealed that easy, use the hair drier to remover the rest.

I normally use naptha to remove stickers. It will remove the adhesive. Sometimes WD40 works.

 

Will naptha work for body side and fender trim moulding? I want to remove all the body side cladding on my Excursion with out damaging the paint underneath....What other chemicals will do the job?

 

Naptha is the solvent used in most adhesives. It is not a hot solvent, so at times it is really slow. If you use the plastic molding removal tools so you do not scratch the surface, along with the naptha you can get off all of the moldings with patients. Personally I have not seen it attach any modern paint (acrylic or urathane). The baked enamels in the 60 and early 70's yes. Find a area that is not exposed and test it, I dought if it will attack the paint on your Excursion.

 

A cool trick for removing the foam tape (two-way) stuff that holds on badges and moulding? Use monofilament fishing line and "saw" through the foam (like you are using dental floss). It doesn't scratch the paint. Then, use solvent to remove the foam tape that is left.

 

best thing I have found for stickers is a pressure washer with a "zero" tip. Just be careful and start far away and work in or you will stripp the paint too. A 3000 psi washer like you can get at home depot will work just fine.