As some might remember, I'm practicing painting on an FZ600 before I tackle my Suzuki. I found a few things that made sticker removal easier and thought I'd share.
First off, how to get them off. Against my better judgement, I used my heat gun on plastic. I had spare parts, so practiced on them first. What I found is that I can tell easily when to stop applying heat. If you are using a heat gun, hold the peice from below where you are applying the heat. When you feel the heat come through the plastic and start to warm up, stop. Any more heat melts the plastic.
This will have loosened up the decals. Next, I took a razor blade, again against my better judgement, and used it to lift the edge of the decal. I was able to easily peal off the entire decal.
This left me with a large area of glue on all the peices, as Yamaha seemed to like a lot of decals. I hunted around, and decided to use a product called 'Goof Off'. It says NOT to use on plastics, but I tried it anyways and had no problems. Using a cloth as the instructions state takes an enormous amount of time if you have any real amount of adhesive to get off. Basically the Goof Off loosens the glue and you have to buff it off with a cloth. As I was going to paint them, I decided to try 'wet sanding' the adhesive areas with Goof Off. The sand paper and goof off stripped the glue right off.
I found that I should have used a lighter grade sand paper all around, so stick with a 240 or 300 grit when sanding anything if you are just trying to scuff it up for a new coat of paint.
I've got all the peices scuffed up, and will be putting on the sandable primer tonight....
Josh
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