Installing Wide Side Stripes?

[Ashyukun]

Though it's highly unlikely I'll get to it tomorrow with everything else that would have to get done first, I have a set of wide side stripes from Hervey that I'd love to get on the car before my trip Sunday. But... there's no instructions whatsoever as to how actually prep the car to install them or do the install...

I would assume they're fairly easy to line up, with butting up against the black trim and going to the edges of the different panels...

How should the stainless be cleaned/prepared before applying the stripes? What environmental conditions? (Is it better for the stainless and/or the vinyl to be warm, or on the cooler side? Should it be kept out of the sun for a while after applying them?)

How long do you have to wait after applying them before washing the car again? Are there any special considerations for the applied stripes when using the usual BKF on the stainless?

Any other general considerations with them to be aware of?

Thanks!

[Farrar]

I used Hervey's stripes for my car.

Prior to installation I cleaned the stainless with acetone. (Rubber gloves come in handy here.)

The stripes wrap the panels at the edges, so on the fenders you will have to peel back the weatherstrip in a couple of places. A razor blade is handy to scrape off the old adhesive before hitting it with a touch of acetone to remove any remaining residue. Black 3M weatherstrip adhesive is best to glue it back since it's the same colour as the weatherstrip.

I only had one problem: as everything dried in the (blazing hot!) sun, I took a close look at the doors and saw that toward the end of the strips, where they wrap around the door panel, metal was showing between the rub strips and the stripes. I simply re-sprayed generously with soapy water, peeled back, and then re-aligned it pushing purposefully toward the rub strip. All is fine now, and they've been on the car for almost a year with no problems.

Farrar

[Ashyukun]

Thanks Farrar!

Having just re-painted the louvers and engine cover and re-glued the weatherstripping on the luggage compartment cover, I'm all too familiar with acetone and how to deal with it. :P

From your experience, do you think it would be better to apply the strips in the garage and out of the sun, or did having the sun and the stainless & vinyl heating up help?

[Farrar]

I think having it in the sun helped -- we didn't have to wait as long for things to dry. However, we didn't let the stripes sit in the sun to begin with -- being black, they would have been too hot to handle.

Farrar

[DeMopar]

Like Farrar said, it's fine to do it in the sun, but just make sure that the car hasn't been out all day in it and the stainless is so hot that you could cook eggs on it. You definitely don't want to do it when it's cold though. Something else you may want to consider is the alignment of your rub strips. The stripe will line up with them so you want them as straight as you can get them. IIRC, we had to straighten up a few of ours when we did our stripes.

Use a few drops of dish soap in a spray bottle of water for your solution, and also a small squeegee to help push out any bubbles.

Lay the stripes in the sun for a while to straighten them out.

Start with a door. Spray (load up) both the back of the decal and the car with the solution and use the door handle as an alignment starting point. Align the decal, and press out the bubbles. Fold the edges around the doors, and trim off excess decal with a sharp razor blade, but make sure you leave enough to hold on to the sheet metal inside of the door jamb.

When you remove the carrier film after it dries a bit, pull straight back on it at 180 degrees, not out towards you or you could pull the decal off.

On the quarters and fenders, start from the edge of the rub strips where they face the wheel openings, and work towards the door jambs/bumper covers, and trim off excess as before.

Once you do one door, it becomes extremely easy. The texture and thickness of these decals makes it far easier to work with than other thin and/or larger decals on painted sheet metal. Also no compound curves to deal with.

Good luck!:thumbup2:

[Ashyukun]

Thanks guys! :thumbup:

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get to putting the stripes on today- and I'm not going to be bringing them along with me on the 2-week long trip I'm headed out on (not going to try and put them on the car in the parking lot of a hotel :P). But, it'll be one of the first things I plan on when I get back barring anything catastrophic happening that takes precedence.

[dvonk]

post before/after photos when youre done... i love the look of the wide side stripe! :biggrin:

[Ashyukun]

post before/after photos when youre done... i love the look of the wide side stripe! :biggrin:

Erk... I forgot to take a 'before' picture before I got started... I've not been wanting to take any pics until I've got all the improvements done, and the stripes were one of them -_-; There are 'before' pics of my car, but they'll also be before the repainted fascias, etc...

[Ashyukun]

OK, so I've got the central 6 stripes installed... but I'm curious about how you all handled the ones that run up into the fascias. Did you trim the stripes flush, or loosen the fascias and sandwich the stripe between the stainless and the fascia?

Trimming them would obviously be easiest, but sandwiching them would likely look the cleanest- but also be a LOT of work loosening the fascias...

[Farrar]

I wrapped mine; my fascias have a bigger gap than yours, I guess.

Farrar

[Ashyukun]

I wrapped mine; my fascias have a bigger gap than yours, I guess.

Farrar
I just had mine off to be refinished and put them on as snug as I could get them... :/

The rear one shouldn't be that much of an issue, but the front I REALLY don't want to mess with loosening up. I'll have to see what I can work out...