Okay, short story long...I've had my 05' GT for about a month now. It had skinny black LeMans stripes on it. They were cheapos and they were torn up and scratched up, I removed them and when I got to the hood and front bumper, I ran into an issue removing the leftover adhesive. I've tried every locally available chemical to the tune of about 100 bucks now with no luck. Frustrated, I went to a local body shop for his opinion. He thinks the hood and bumper cover had been painted shortly before they applied the stripes. So the paint was "green" and the adhesive reacted with the clear coat. Anyhoo, he says worst case $800 if he has to completely refinish the hood and bumper. That's not in the budget right now. I'm thinking about letting him take care of the bumper. As for the hood, I'm thinking I could sand the adhesive off and then apply flat black in the Steeda style. It would have to be rattle can for now and I realize it won't last but it can't look much worse than it does now. What say you guys? Any ideas?

 

hard to say, but *maybe* just CAREFULLY wetsand it with like 1000 grit to clean it off, but if the clearcoat gets cut thru though, it will mess up the metallic(if its metallic) requiring a repaint...
but if you could carefully wetsand it out , might just be the cost of reclearing it to make it look new.
repainting is pricey, I'd ask another bodyshop to look at it before thinking about sanding on it- theyd probably be able to say if they felt there was enough clear/if the 'bite' was light enough to even consider sanding it out.

 

What Tim said... also, you might want to attempt wetsanding the offending area, and so long as you can get it smooth, even if there isn't enough to buff it out, you could re-clear over the entire top of the hood. This would be much less than sand and refinish on the whole - of course the color will play into this - lighter colors it will work better on, on black or dark blue it will be more difficult to hide the blend work.

 

I forgot to mention I had ordered a set of stripes from graphic express and installed the hood stripes. The leftover adhesive was too thick and actually showed an outline in the new stripes. I just ordered a super stripe in flat black. I'm going to lightly wet sand the adhesive and then apply the new stripe. Hoping for the best.

ETA: The car is white. Thanks for the tips, guys. Wish me luck. Although I didn't do it, the lesson here is spend the money with a known vendor and buy good stripes. I think the crappy, cheap stripes the previous owner installed are completely to blame for this mess I'm in.

 

Don't forget to try 3M adhesive / woodgrain remover - works well, but be careful with it. It also is not available at most stores, you have to go to a paint supply house to get it. Does exactly what they say though...

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I've tried over 100 bucks of chemical adhesive removers including the 3M stuff, Dupont 3812, and a couple of spray cans of some other stuff. Nothing would touch it. I'm baffled at why the adhesive is so tough. I spent 2 hours this evening sanding with 400 grn and got it knocked down alot. Of course the paint is ruined, but only where my super stripe will be so no worries. Just out of ideas and I'd kinda tossed around the idea of a Mach 1 look anyway, so the flat black hood stripe fits that look.

ETA: @ SilverHorseRacing. The 5 minutes you took to help with my questions has got me looking at your products to see if you have anything I can use, just out of appreciation for giving me your time. It's cool to see vendors participating on a site like you are.

 

Greg, you are very welcome. It's difficult for me to spend as much time "bench racing" as I'd like around here, but whenever I get the chance, it's cool to be "just one of the guys" for a few minutes instead of a vendor / dealer... been into Mustangs since I was a kid, literally, so it's what I enjoy doing and if I can help someone out, I'm glad to - you are welcome!

BTW - don't know where you are at with the sanding, but I'd be looking at 1000-1500 grit followed by 3M microfinish / polish compounds on a foam waffle wheel in an attempt to save it. Hard to say since I can't see it, but that would be my guess.

Also, on all our customers cars here - I recommend painting the top stripes on, and buring them under the clear when possible. I know it's not in alot of people's budgets and all, but especially if the car will see a lot of sun, it's the way to go in the long run. I've seen cars with stripes 1 year old that were just shot, and by year 2-3 they ruin the paint, and then you have to re-shoot the whole top of the car. Better to do it early, then you don't have the repair to be concerned with like you're going through now to some extent. (and for the record, we don't paint here, so I don't have a dog in the fight)

 

I agree that painting the stripe is the way to go. It's just not in the budget right now. I just wanted to remove the old stripes because they cheapened he car. I wanted to do performance mods first, then over time work on cosmetics. Now this mess is stopping me from enjoying my car that I've only had a month. I gotta get this sorted out before I can move on to the tuner/CAI, gears, and all that fun stuff.

I'm starting to think the car was in a small fender bender (wasn't in the Carfax) and the hood and bumper cover were repainted but not turned in on insurance. I think that's when the stripes were applied and the paint was too fresh. I had no problem removing the adhesive anywhere else on the car. I plan on wet sanding with 1000 and maybe buffing with compound before applying the stripe. Anyway, thanks again for your tips.