silicone adhesive

[Jeepsloth]

Not exactly a tech question here

I have an 01 Focus ZX3 with a ground effects kit. Last year I took it to a shop to get the front air dam repaired and repainted. Well this weekend I was removing it because the wife cracked it.. again and discovered that the knuckleheads had used some sort of silicone adhesive to glue the thing to the stock valance.

We're talking about a bead that was 1/2" thick in some spots. I cut most of it off but still have a thin skin stuck to the painted lower valance.

I tried the WD-40 thing, the heat gun thing, and the 3M adhesive remover thing, no luck.

Is there anything out there that will remove this stuff without destroying the paint?

 

[DDCxj]

Yes and no. It depends on how long you leabe it on. Your best bet would be to go to a body shop and see if they can order you a bottle of a good adhesive remover like the 3M stuff. I had a shop get me a bottle of Auto Tech from J&R auto body supply and it worked great. As long as you don't leave it on the car for more than a minute, it shou.dn't take off any paint. And water nuetralizes it so as long as you got a hose or a bucket of water your all set.

It'll take some scrubbing but it will come off and as long as you aren't careful, you wont take any paint off. I had to do that on my new XJ that had all kinds of that crap on the door edges from where the previous owner had those edge protector molding things.

 

[5-90]

Hm. Try Ronsonol Zippo fluid. I'd try it in a test spot somewhere (the underside of the hood or trunk lid can work well for this) to make sure it won't get the paint, and be sure to rinse liberally with clear water often (automotive paint just ain't what it used to be...) but the naptha in that attacks pretty much all adhesives that I've had to deal with.

5-90

 

[bajacalal]

The ronsonol lighter fluid for wick (zippo) lighters might work. It contains naptha which I have found is about the only thing that eats silicones. Thats a good tip 5-90, it just dissolves old gasket material when nothing else works. Coleman stove fuel is napthat and costs less. No telling what it will do to the paint but I haven't had trouble getting it on XJ paint.

 

[5-90]

True, but truck paint does tend to be a little tougher, and the two-part polyurethane they use is just wimpy - might as well use whitewash. Gawd, I miss automotive lacquer - tougher than the hinges of Hell!

Goof Off can be had at hardware stores - I don't remember what's in it, but it also works well. If you do a LOT of cleaning of stuff like this, you can usually find "VM&P Naptha" (Varnish Maker's & Painter's - it's used as a cleaning solvent) in the paint section of the hardware store - I buy a quart can every few years, since I also use it for target brass cleaning (since you can't get carbon tetrachloride anymore. Damn.)

Using anything stronger will probably kill the paint, so I'd not think about acetone or anything like that. Naptha and denature alcohol is about as far as I'd go, and Ford paint for the 2000's just doesn't seem to be that good (kinda like GM paint in the mid-1980's.)

Like I said, do test on somewhere hidden before you use it - the underside of the hood or trunk lid, in a corner somewhere, works well - and I'd pick the hood because you can hose it down, just like you would undercar. Just a thought...

5-90