Just wondering how to remove pinstripes. Any tricks?? I have a thin green and white pinstripe on the sides and back of my Explorer (top of fenders, doors, around back). I know there are differring views on stripes/decals, but I like the clean, stripe and decal free look, and want to get rid of them.

Thanks in advance.

If they are NOT painted pin stripes, take it to a power wash and use the high powered stream of water to take them off. That is the best way and least damaging.

Originally posted by 2001ExpSport
If they are NOT painted pin stripes, take it to a power wash and use the high powered stream of water to take them off. That is the best way and least damaging.
that doesnt work. i tried. those factory pieces dont come off easily

You must have a pretty high pressure washer there! (I don't want to remove my 7 year old paint in the process)
I will give it a try, but I have used the high pressure washer before and never taken any of the stripes off.

And no, they are not painted on stripes. Just don't know what to use...razor blade will scratch the paint, also don't want to leave behind any of that sticky adhesive behind.

With seven year old paint when you get them off the paint will have faded and that fresh paint under the strips will look like you had new strips put on it. I did it years ago to a red pathfinder

Well, that wouldn't be good now would it. I guess I may have to leave them on. Thanks for the warning.

heres just an idea if you still want them off. try to heat them up with a hairdryer (a heatgun might damage the paint or something) and get started peeling them off. then if theres any sticky residue stuff left, get some bug and tar remover. ive never done this, but if i had to, this might be an idea.

Hair dryers work great! Heat guns you have to work REALLY fast at other wise you will melt the paint and the fingers. :D My dad's old trucks all had big old stickers on the side and I have had to take off a number of them over the years and the hair dryer works the best if you take your time and if the sticky stuff stays on stop and heat it up some more and get it off.

Jon is right about the faded paint part but if u want them off try the hair dryer. it worked great for me a few years ago on a friends vehicle. i used the hairdryer to heat the pin stripe tape, and started pulling it off very slowly. a razor blade will likely scratch your paint so try using your finger nail to pry it up on one side and then try to pull it off slowly with the hair dryer heating up the tape. the leftover residue glue was taken off pretty easily with Meguaires car cleaner/wax. i did do this during winter in an unheated garage and it was very time consuming but i really dislike pinstripes myself.

Thanks for the info, guys. I beleive my Ex has been painted, so the paint will not as faded as new paint. The reason I think it has been painted is because on the black strip at the bottom of the windows, there is a lot of little dents(like hail would leave). If it dented the strip this badly, I think the paint must have gotten it bad too. Also, whoever painted it must have been an amature, because there is alot of dust in the paint job, the factory paint job would not have this.

So, I think I will try the hair dryer thing. Thanks again guys!

Try it on a small piece of pinstriping first, like between the door handle and door edge on the front door. This way if it is faded enough to be notieable, it will be a little easier to line up/cover up if you decide to do so.

I went to a body shop a while ago trying to find out how to do the same thing. The guy I spoke with was real cool about it. I don't remember many of the details of what he said because I never did it. But the process was the same as they would have done at the shop.
At the shop they would have used an air gun of some sort to power a soft 'rubbery' type of buffing pad to remove the stripes. 3M would make everything you need to do it. That will completely remove the stripes and the residue at the same time. But from that process it leaves behind a wide area from where the actuall work was done. To get the marks from the rubber pad off they used another traditional type of buffing pad and some cleaning solvents to clean up the entire area. And was all there was to it.
Also he mentioned to try to leave it outside on a hot sunny day for as long as possible to get the metal on the body nice and warm.
Another side note is that the reason I never did any of that is because I don't have any air tools. The rubber pad that does all the work needs to spin very fast in order to build up the proper heat in order to remove the stripe. All I have is a cheap 30 dollar hand buffer from Wal-Mart. You can get different pads for it, but it shakes around more then it spins. It's just good for waxing. But the morel of the story is that you might want to check with a local body shop that can point you in the right direction.

I used warm/hot water with a sponge to loosen the adhesive and they peeled off pretty easy

Thanks guys, those suckers will be coming off soon!

BlueOvalFan please post on how the process went! I def want to get mine off! As for the dealer emblems Gimp I could not have said it better myself! I use fishing line to get those metal dealer emblems off

Killer,

I will post how it turned out. I will probably do it Wednesday. The truck is too muddy now and I won't have time to wash it and try removing them til then.

P.S. Glad to hear that I am not the only one who likes the cleaner look with no stripes. My Father in law bought a beautiful 2000 Super Duty, then put the ugliest mess of a stripe kit on it, looks rediculous. I can't believe how many nice vehicles are wrecked with gawdy stripes.

i just pulled mine off!

fd97exp Just pulled them off????
How did you just pull them off?
Was the paint brighter where you pulled them off compared to the rest of the truck?
How did you get rid of the residue that holds the strips on?

there was no discoloration, but my explorer is white. there was some residue, but after 2-3 normal washes that was gone.

Another reason why white, or light colored vehicles are nice. After my last dark vehicle, I swore I would never own another because of all the dust, hard water spots, etc. So, what do I do? Buy a dark green explorer.
Not too bright.

It is funny how the easiest vehicles to keep clean are white ones. At least that has been my experience.

I will try to pull them off, but I will have the hair dryer ready if needed.

Thanks again, guys. Will be doing it tomorrow.

Hey guys, I took them off yesterday, and am I ever glad I did. Was really easy and it looks much better. Took about 20 minutes.

I used a hair dryer to heat the end of the stripe, then lift it with my fingernail. If I didn't heat it, it just kept breaking. Once I got it started, it was easy. You just have to make sure you pull perpendicular to the surface, or the sticky adhesive crap will stick to the paint. It helped to hold the hair dryer there as I was pulling, didn't leave as much adhesive behind. What little adhesive that was left, I just rubbed off with my finger, or thought later that I could have also used a pencil eraser. There wasn't much to it.

As far as a difference in the paint, there is, just noticably. Looks the other paint is not faded, but the clear coat is alot shinier under the pinstripe. I will wax the truck today, and I am sure that will make it unnoticable - I don't think the previous owner ever waxed it. You really have to look hard to see where the stripe was.

Overall, alot easier than I had expected. I actually removed the dealer sticker as well, it was not as easy. It basically came off in about a billion frickin pieces, left all the adhesive behind, no matter how much I heated it.
But a little WD-40 on a cloth wiped the adhesive right off(is there anything that stuff can't do??), then just wiped the area clean.

Thuck looks much better, nothing on it but the original Ford logo and the Explorer XLT logo. Looks much neater. For some reason the paint looks that much better too, looks much cleaner.

Thanks for the advice guys...

Waxed it today, and I can't even tell where the stripes were. Really glad I did it.

However, I will never use Mother's Caranuba wax again. Accidentally got some on the door handles, turned them white, and would not wipe off(except with WD-40 - see previous post). And also, the wax seemed to highlight every single imperfection and stone chip in the paint. Any where that there was a chip, the wax stayed in, and stayed white, which on a dark vehicle, doesn't look too good.
The solution: I spent about 3 hours with a frickin Q-tip "buffing" the chips to get the wax out. Also had to take the Q-tip around all the mouldings, etc to get rid of the white lines.

I know you all are fans of Zaino's, but does anyone know of any poorman's wax that works better than the aforementioned? Would like to get the Zaino's, but the kids like to eat, so I will have to try something else less expensive for now.

I have an EB so you can imagine getting those stripes off and the emblem Eddie Bauer off of it... the body shop did it and when I asked them how they told me the secret...

they always use a hot glue gun (without the glue stick of course).... they say it's better than a hot air gun (the heat is less likely to be spread out over the surface) you can use it in just the area you need it.... they hold it 4 -5 inches away... and peel....most of the sticky residue comes off quickly and is easily buffed away.... they also use it to repair scratches... and remove old bumper stickers... it's also very cheap to replace....cheaper than a hot air gun

you can't tell I ever had pinstripes on my truck at all nor did the paint come out faded or look newer underneath

Karol

Since it's a Sat night and I'm home w/ a sinus infection and all my college buds are out boozin I decided to give it a try. I turned up the heat in our garage and my roommate has a great hair dryer. (She'll kill me if she knew what I used it for.) Well I go them off. I used some Spray 9 to get whatever remaining glue there was. Man ! It looks SO MUCH CLEANER! I hated those damm stripes since the day my pops handed down the old explorer to me.

KillerXLT,

Looks alot better, doesn't it!! Now when I see an explorer on this site with pinstripes, I cringe. I know some people like them, but if they could see before and afters(didn't take any, sorry), they may change their mind.

Glad someone else has seen the difference and liked it.

Peace.

Your in luck! I took before and after pics b/c I know how much everyone loves the pics! I'm going to download the digi pics into my friends pc sometime this week and post them here.

seen my sig?

Go to a local sign shop, if they do any work with vinyl (banners, box signs) they have a chemical remover that will take all the stripes off along with the sticky stuff. worked for me!! good luck

I have done this on a few cars and it worked out good. The key is to have the vehicle warm, like after sitting in the hot sun. A hair dryer works well too. GOO GONE or WD40 will take off the residue. That pad that is supposed to take them off, was a waste of money in my opinion. But like imacdn says the important part is to keep it warm/hot.

WD-40, Hair dryer, and a razorblade.