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What are people using to remove their Roof weatherstrip?

1K views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  Varun916 
#1 ·
Exige-specific, but I'm replacing the side weatherstrip pieces - they came off easily, but there are beads of adhesive stuck to the roof, and they're like rocks. I've tried Rapid Remover, blow dryer + scraping with a plastic scrape. I managed to get one bead off but it took the paint under with it. Has anyone successfully removed these before?
 
#2 ·
Have you tried "sawing" it with fishing line? That's what I use to remove stubborn badges etc. with the 3M adhesive without jacking up the paint. Used it to take the Stingrays off my new C7 (kept it a whole year and a half).

San
 
#4 ·
Exige-specific, but I'm replacing the side weatherstrip pieces - they came off easily, but there are beads of adhesive stuck to the roof, and they're like rocks.
...
I managed to get one bead off but it took the paint under with it.
AFAIK, Lotus used (soft) trim cement to hold these on, so I wonder if someone used another product to re-attach the pieces later in the life of the car. If the adhesive is a urethane product, no solvent you or I can get will soften it. Solvents I’d try include a citrus-based paint thinner, mineral spirits, denatured alcohol, acetone, MEK, lacquer thinner and brake cleaner (chlorinated or non-chlorinated). I’ve generally listed these in order of preference and from least likely to harm your paint to most damaging. Many of these solvents WILL HARM YOUR PAINT, so take care to keep the solvent off the paint. If you rub the adhesive with a q-tip soaked in the adhesive and nothing comes off on the q-tip, the solvent probably won’t do you any good. I would NOT try to protect adjacent paint with tape since solvent could wick under the tape edge and damage the paint over the width of the tape.

If you can’t find a solvent that will soften the hard adhesive, I recommend mechanically thinning the adhesive buildup before you try to remove the last little bit attached to the paint. By “mechanically thinning,” I mean cutting the bead down with a razor blade, scraping, filing or sanding. For this task, you can protect the adjacent exposed paint with masking tape. By thinning the adhesive buildup first, it is more likely that the underlying paint will survive when you remove the last little bit. It’s hard to know without seeing the affected area, but I suspect scraping with the edge of a new razor blade would give you the most control and the best results. Consider leaving a small amount of the old adhesive in place, especially if it won’t show when you’re done and there is risk of damaging the paint during complete removal.

If you think it is extremely likely the paint will lift and the damage will extend beyond the weatherstrip, you could score the paint film inside the area that will be covered by the new weatherstrip. This has the downside of disturbing the paint film and possibly resulting in future paint lifting, but no more so than the uncontrolled lifting you mentioned previously. If you go this route, I suggest sealing down the cut paint edge using a small brush and some gloss clear. I’d also do this on the first side where the paint lifted during your initial efforts.

Glen
 
#5 ·
Wow, thanks Glen for those incredibly detailed instructions! Going to give all of those a shot, starting at the top of your list. I'd initially hoped to run without the weatherseal as some here do(since it doesn't appear to be functional), but I think the better option is to hide the gunk under with new seal.

Good to know that Lotus used a more easily removable compound - this stuff is pretty nasty. Will report back with my results.
 
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