Ok guys, I'm about to remove my side moldings on my car because they are sun-faded or rusted or whatever and they're starting to make my car look horrible. What steps should I take in doing this project? What should I use to get all of the old glue off of the car? Thanks in advance.

 

If I were you, I'd do one molding/glue at a time...I think it'd be a lot better that way, do a molding, then all the glue, before moving on to the next one, I still have all the glue off mine, pay some friends to help you...

 

invest in a hair dryer...or borrow one.

Heat up the moulding, then rip off the plastic/rubber with your hand, then try going over it again until the adhesive is plyable, you can probably just ball it up and roll it along, then get any remaining residue with some paint thinner or WD-40.

I did it the hard way and used paint thinner on the whole thing, but even then the whole project only took 10 hours, but should only take like 2 or 3 with this newer method.

Brian

 

just pull them off and scrape..

 

I pulled mine off. I'm in the process of filling it with sheet metal, bodno, and paint.

 

u might wanna try to use an adhesive remover. its just a spray can and u simply spray it wait five minutes and wipe it off, and it should come off. i used it for my pinstipe and it worked great. i'm not sure how it would work for the moldings, but i would think itd work. i used a 3m adhesive and mark remover can, if it makes any difference, it was only like 3 bucks

 

you could always paint em on the car

 

Well, I tried getting all of the glue off and that **** was not fun, so I said screw it and I'm going to throw my drivers side molding back on with some tough holding glue. Looks like I need a paintjob!! lol

 

Dude, just do like I did. I pulled mine off & then drove to an autobody shop. The guy there used a sorta rubber tipped drill bit & within 5 minutes, the glue was gone. Paid him about $30 NZ dollars to do that! Looks much better than before.

 

I did mine about two years ago. I was able to buy my car body colored strips from Nissan, so I just had to swap them.

You use a hot gun or hair dryer to heat up the old strips and a plastic scraper to peel them off, so you don't mar the finish. There is a tool for removing the remaining adhesive. It's a rubber wheel that you can put on a pneumatic grinder, that basically erases the adhesive off the paint. You can buy this at an auto paint store and it's normally used to remove pinstriping ( I think it's called a pinstripe removal wheel, or something like that). It's useful down to about 1000 RPM, so I chucked it up in my power drill and it worked perfectly. Then I cleaned up any spots with the 3M adhesive remover. After the area is clean, you just peel off the backing on the new strips and stick them on like a stamp. It wasn't too hard of a job and it really made the car look better.

 

If you go to a local body shop they use a small rubber wheel attachment that removes the old double sided tape. It only takes a few minutes to get all the double sided tape off, so they may be really nice and do it for free or take a little money from you.
I used Goo Gone and rubbed for hours to get mine off...not fun! When I recently debadged my 328i I tried using clay bar on the double sided tape and it all came off in a matter of seconds. Of course the clay is now ruined, so try this after you've clayed the rest of the car.

 

See, if only other people would be as smart as us I did the same, I tried myself to take the tape off, but got so ****ed off.