TrueStereo
Member
- Posts
- 18
- Location
- Near Preston
When I got my Disco it had window tint on all windows, except the windscreen. I am pretty sure that the ones on the front doors were illegally dark and the ones on the back doors certainly made the interior a gloomy place. Besides, what's the point of buying an adventure vehicle if everything you see is purple! Tint had to go!
Driver's side door tackled first. Made a mess. By the time I got to the back doors I was doing it pretty perfectly so I thought I'd share my experience to help if anyone else is trying the same.
I used a steamer we originally bought for stripping wallpaper with the small nozzle attachment. I started by using a small sharp knife to lift a small corner of the film. As soon as I started with a lifted edge I started steaming it. Remove steam, pull a bit, steam again. Repeat until there's a decent amount of film coming off to get a grip of. Then start pulling and steaming steadily.
Take it really slowly! The problem came when the steam was not quite keeping up with the pulling and the pulling was slightly more than the adhesive could take. At that point the film came away with a jerk and left a stripe of the adhesive on the glass. I found it a lot better to cut the film so that I was dealing with about a 5-6 inch section at a time, that way, it was much easier to keep the steam on the bit being pulled.
At the bottom of the window, the film continued below the seal behind the door card. On the first couple of windows I did not realise until I got the to the bottom and ended up leaving some straggly bits of film. On the other windows, I scored the film before starting the removal. There is now still film behind the door card but the visible window has a clean edge.
The stripes of adhesive left were easy to remove with a Stanley knife blade in a scraper, again originally bought for wallpaper removal. I ended up changing the blade a couple of times as they got clogged up with sticky pretty quickly so get a pack in before you start.
On the quarter light on one rear door, the adhesive had already completely failed and the film pulled off without any problem, leaving all the adhesive like fish scales down the glass. This was just a matter of scrapping with the blade. It came away reasonably easy but required a couple of blade changes even on the very small window. The glue had turned really gloopy.
I have left the film on the rear windows and the boot door. I don't mind the van look it gives and we will rarely have anyone in the rear seats to have their view spoiled. If I were to tackle the tailgate with the heated element, I would try to work on a narrow strip at a time using plenty of steam as removal of the adhesive using a blade afterwards might damage the element quite easily.
Hope this helps someone!
Driver's side door tackled first. Made a mess. By the time I got to the back doors I was doing it pretty perfectly so I thought I'd share my experience to help if anyone else is trying the same.
I used a steamer we originally bought for stripping wallpaper with the small nozzle attachment. I started by using a small sharp knife to lift a small corner of the film. As soon as I started with a lifted edge I started steaming it. Remove steam, pull a bit, steam again. Repeat until there's a decent amount of film coming off to get a grip of. Then start pulling and steaming steadily.
Take it really slowly! The problem came when the steam was not quite keeping up with the pulling and the pulling was slightly more than the adhesive could take. At that point the film came away with a jerk and left a stripe of the adhesive on the glass. I found it a lot better to cut the film so that I was dealing with about a 5-6 inch section at a time, that way, it was much easier to keep the steam on the bit being pulled.
At the bottom of the window, the film continued below the seal behind the door card. On the first couple of windows I did not realise until I got the to the bottom and ended up leaving some straggly bits of film. On the other windows, I scored the film before starting the removal. There is now still film behind the door card but the visible window has a clean edge.
The stripes of adhesive left were easy to remove with a Stanley knife blade in a scraper, again originally bought for wallpaper removal. I ended up changing the blade a couple of times as they got clogged up with sticky pretty quickly so get a pack in before you start.
On the quarter light on one rear door, the adhesive had already completely failed and the film pulled off without any problem, leaving all the adhesive like fish scales down the glass. This was just a matter of scrapping with the blade. It came away reasonably easy but required a couple of blade changes even on the very small window. The glue had turned really gloopy.
I have left the film on the rear windows and the boot door. I don't mind the van look it gives and we will rarely have anyone in the rear seats to have their view spoiled. If I were to tackle the tailgate with the heated element, I would try to work on a narrow strip at a time using plenty of steam as removal of the adhesive using a blade afterwards might damage the element quite easily.
Hope this helps someone!
