Stripe removal continues
Was tired from being outside most of the weekend watching soccer, but decided I better do some work on the stripes. Good thing I did.I removed the second boot stripe and got all the glue off the boot. That took about an hour.

I then decided to start on the hood stripes. What a pain that turned into. I managed to get one stripe (and related glue) off. That took only 3 hours. Looks like I know what I'll be doing either Monday or Tuesday night.
Below is a close-up of hood stripe before I took it off. Just wanted to show the cracking.

Finally - all that is left of my boot stripes:

With regard to the stripe removal process, I have plastic scraper that I think is meant for doing spackle. However, they work good for detailing work since they are plastic.
I have been using a hairdryer to heat up the vinyl. Unfortunately, the vinyl is so thin and weak it just keeps breaking as I try to pull it up. Every now and then I might get a piece that actually starts to peel off - that's why the second boot stripe went so fast as the bottom 6 inches or so I was able to just lift off.
Stripe removal finished

The final stripe took about 2 hours to remove. I think I ended up with a total of 7.5 - 8.0 hours just getting the stripes off. You may also notice I removed the hood emblem - the MINI logo had come off, so I have a new one on order.
Let the work commence!



Some attempts to show the swirls, etc.



The three photos above are my attempts to show a close-up of the condition of the paint and the swirls that are present.
This was an easy video to add - only 10 seconds and I don't need to bother combining it with any others. This was my "helper" while I was detailing.
An aside
Since I'm cross posting most of this entry from what I posted over on the THMMC forums while I was in the process, sometimes things don't make sense in context. Case in point, here is a post where I was replying to someone's questions. Figured I would drop it in here since this is where it came in the chronological order of postings:
I prefer 303 Aerospace Protectant for cleaning up the interior, including my leatherette seats. Otherwise, I don't do anything special.
On the black trim, I have found the Black Wow does a good job of getting off any stray wax that might get on the trim. It does a pretty good job of cleaning the trim and restoring it to black. My biggest complaint is it remains sticky, and thus a dust magnet, after you are done and it does not last very long imo.
Cole has probably the best looking trim I've seen. He told me a while back that he uses Renew Protect Blak (http://renewprotect.com/). Once my funds are replenished a bit, I'll probably buy some and hit mine up with that to see how it does.
I haven't gotten around to posting it yet, but my honeycomb grill inserts in the front and rear bumpers were in really bad shape as well. I came across some Meguiers (sp?) black trim restorer at the auto store that was in an aerosol can. I decided to give that a try although I was kind of skeptical. I thought it worked extremely well and was pleasantly surprised. It made short work of all that detailed trim. I may have to go back and do a couple more treatments - waiting to see how the initial application is going to hold up.
Back to the detailing
A couple pics to start the morning of the second day once I had the MINI back in the garage and ready to go:
One nice thing I did discover though was this Meguier's trim restorer in an aerosol can available at the local auto parts store. I was very skeptical about using it, but decided to give it a go on the honeycomb inserts in the front and rear. As it turned out, it worked really well. Thus far it is holding up okay, considering I only did one coat, but it will not be long before a second coat needs to be done.


The black trim
I ended up doing most of the black trim with Black Wow. As I've mentioned before, I'm not a fan of Black Wow, but I have a bottle left from early in my MINI ownership when I bought into the hype. My dislike for it has been born out as it is not even a month later and the trim looks like crap again. I will have to redo it with something else.One nice thing I did discover though was this Meguier's trim restorer in an aerosol can available at the local auto parts store. I was very skeptical about using it, but decided to give it a go on the honeycomb inserts in the front and rear. As it turned out, it worked really well. Thus far it is holding up okay, considering I only did one coat, but it will not be long before a second coat needs to be done.


And the final set of pictures. One quick one showing the double-sided tape applied to the back of the Cooper S badging before being put back on. The others are just some of the finished MINI.




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