Im not sure why, but my 06 ranger, when I bought it came with long, grey flame like decals running the whole distance of the truck. At first I thought, "well I can live with it" but now I really cant stand them and want to remove them.

My glossy, solid black, unscratched beast has perfect paint, and I really dont wanna mess up the clear coat and or scratch the paint, so can anyone tell me:

Whats the best way to remove LARGE decals? I test stripped a tiny corner piece, and sure enough it broke off with less than a fingernail tip ammount, and left glue behind.

I hear people say that using a hair dryer and GOOF-OFF (ARE YOU KIDDING ME??) will work, but that seems like more of a dulling agaent to STRIP clear coat than a cleaning agent.

Any ideas or professional tips would be great, I plan on removing them this sunday. Thanks!


Rob

 

Using a hair dryer will soften the adhesive, making the decal easier to remove. Lighter fluid does a great job of removing the left over glue, and will not harm the paint.

 

^ Just dont smoke on the job.

 

or else: KABOOOOM!

 

I doubt it. Ford didn't offer factory flame stickers on any 06 Ranger. They were dealer installed if you bought the truck new or maybe customer installed if you got it used.

Using a hair dryer or heat gun (very carefully!) will soften factory stickers and allow them to be removed easily in one piece. If the aftermarket flames are vinyl, this method should work well on those too. Goof Off, alcohol or adhesive/wax remover formulated for auto paint will clean up any leftover adhesive.

 

I would like to see pictures of these before you remove them

 

+1. Dealer installed crap. My truck came w/ some sort of "Ranger SST" decals. All official looking, but they weren't from Ford. Hair dryer works well for removing the decals. Start at an edge applying heat and just slowly work them off. Keep getting a new bite closer to where they are still attached so you don't tear them, and you can likely peel almost the whole thing off in one piece. I used some sort of auto paint prep aerosol (designed to remove grease/wax prior to body and paint work) to remove the remaining adhesive, then just rewaxed the truck. No traces of the decals remained.

The only truck I remember coming w/ flames was the Troy Lee edition Mazda pick-up. Looked kind of cool when they first came out.

 

ok you have to be patient when doing this tho lol go get a hair dryer and a putty knife plastic preferably i used metal i didnt scratch my paint just took some time to be extra carefull and go get some oops and a old T shirt and dab n go with the oops while scrubbing all the left over glue it works =D i just did my acouple weeks ago

 

you shouldnt need a putty knife at all... jsut heat them, pull the stripe up in one piece as you heat it... might want to wax when your done also

 

yeah true but for me i bite my nails so it was harder for me hah

 

You can buy plastic razor blades if you need to use something, or a piece of the lid from an ice cream container. No metal though too easy to make a mistake.
Any auto parts store would have solvent made for use on paint, but if you get the glue at the right temp and pull it off at the right speed the glue should mostly come off. You won't want to scrub much on shiny black paint or you may see the tiny scratches... use a soft cotton cloth and be sure to wax at least where the vinyl was. You should be able to remove it without a trace with a little patience.

 

I used a razor blade to remove my pin striping, I didn't scratch my truck because I went slow, but I also wouldn't of cared to much, she already has a few scratches from off roading.

I used 3m adhesive and wax remover for the left over glue and it worked great.

 

Personal experience is heat gun, mix of goo-gone and bug and tar remover, and some elbow grease with plenty of patience.

 

remember to WAX your truck after you perform this as well.... and where are the pics?!

 

get your iron and some wax paper, hold the wax paper over the decal and "iron" it until its hot, peel off. this is the way I took the vinyl letters off of our church van, worked great, a thin cloth will work also.

 

Take it to a body shop and have it professionally removed.... So you dont scratch it or anything... and they can buff the rest of the glue off to make it look like it was never there...