flobadon

Hey guys, was washing my truck today at the car wash and when I was was washing out the bed, went to take the sprayer out while it was on full blast and it ripped par of the side striping decal right off the truck.

Anyway, my question is how much for the replacement decals, and how much do you think they would charge to install them? I'm not willing to risk putting them on myself and accidentally making the truck look butt-ugly.

Thanks in advance. I'm going to go hit things, throw things, et cetera now.

Oh, by the way, it is the "check mark" decal, the one where the lines are wide around the door area and converge near the tail lights, if that helps.

Fink

I dunno how much it would cost but I wish the pressure washers around here would do that to my decals...I hate mine!

Fink

flobadon

Yeah, at this point I might just strip them completely off. My dad wanted to when the truck was his, but never got around to it. If the price is right, though, I'll just replace 'em.

Vato Loco

Remove it! It would look so much better without them, I know many members have taken off the factory decals and were very happy with the result.

flobadon

Just out of curiosity... Here is a shot of my truck I doctored in Photoshop:

Before:


Mock-up of stripped decals:


I've seen it with decals for close to 7 years now, so it would be weird to take them off, but I think I could get used to it.

Erich_870

See, that looks great. You guys amaze me some times with your Photochop skills. I wish I could get my decals off with a pressure washer. Mine came with the front and back side panel decals and someone took off just the front! How stupid. Now the problem is that if I took off the rear ones, the paint would be nice and new under them so it would look even worse oh well. I'm afraid to wash and wax my rig, I think it might be white by the time I get it clean

seaflea

I think those stripes have been discontinued by toyota. You may have a hard time finding any. IMO it looks better without.

flobadon

I figured that too. Just another reason to ditch them.

Anyone know how to go about removing the decals? I'm sure someone out there has deliberately taken them off.

waskillywabbit

iTrader: (-1)

When I was motoXn I used to put stickers on my helmet to hide all the scratches, but I hate stickers on the paint of a 4x4 vehicle, especially pin striping etc, just something else like fender flares to get ripped off eventually. IMO your truck looks better nekkid.

However, I'd be careful taking off stickers that have been attached to paint that long, you might just lose some paint as well...

DreamToy

A littleheat and patience! I have never done it to a Toy but it works with other applcations, I have all kinds of crap to remove from mine.

John

Plays_with_Toys

I took my stripes off, and they were baked on there after 16 years. Most of it came off, though some of the clearcoat parts of the sticker had literally bonded itself to the paint.

What I did was I took a heat gun, and some welding gloves. Heated up a section of the sticker (keeping the gun about 6 inches away), then started rolling it. Heated up further down, rolled it. Heat > roll. Sometimes if you heat up a foot long section nice and evenly you can peel it off. The welding gloves are nice because you don't feel hardly any of the heat from the gun, so you can keep on working. Just be sure not to heat the truck to the point you start distorting the metal.

If you click on my sig line, the very first link, you can see pics of my truck, you can see from earlier photos I had the stripes, and then the later ones show that with the exception of the crackled clearcoat parts, the stripes are gone. But it doesn't look like yours are in as bad of shape as mine, because this truck just stayed out in the sun all day long basically. I hope this helps!

yellowspeedracer

i also think it looks better without them. i took all the emblums off my truck a week or 2 after i got it. i had to wait on the TRD stickers until i could get and eraser thing to take them off. That's what i would recommend using. Just go to your local car/truck paint supply store and ask them for an eraser thing that goes in a die grinder to take off stickers. sorry i forgot what exactly they're called. Unfortunately, im willing to bet the paint is going to be faded around the stickers. if that's the case it will look worse without them (IMO of course)

HaveBlue

I believe a heat gun and some patience will remove them. I know a few members have removed them off 2nd gen 4Runners.
If you really like those stripes, you could always outline them, remove them, and paint the areas you outlined. Though, I think it looks better without them.

EnolaGaia

I wanna second both those thoughts. If you've got the 'checkmark/swoosh' side decals, I believe your truck is older than my '93. In '98 it was T-boned and the entire passenger side had to be redone. At that point (only 5 years old) the (Toyota dealership-affiliated) body shop had a hell of a time locating a replacement factory decal. Personally I wanted 'em to forget it, lose the surviving decal, and just redo the whole exterior (even at my expense for the difference), but they wouldn't / couldn't because of an insurance requirement that it be restored 'as was'.

When I bought the truck in '93 I tried hard to get it without any decals. That was a non-starter. I was subsequently told (by a Toyota salesman) that those decals were dealer- or port-installed options considered mandatory so the dealership would get a guaranteed little bit o' gravy on each sale...

gtaSR5

I'll go against everybody and say... I like the stripes

flobadon

From what I can see, the paint under the decals looks almost identical to the bare paint, so that's not going to be a problem. Went out today to check the damage in daylight, and noticed that where the decal was blasted off there was still sticker residue. I've heard of people using goof-off to get the sticker glue off, anybody know if something like Simple Green would also work? I know I have used it on glass before.

flobadon

Interesting... My truck is an '89, but I think they used the same decals in '93. I haven't been able to find any information on the decals anywhere, but I'm thinking at the same time I'm not going to be willing to pay however much they will cost me even if I do find a set. Oh well, I'm tired of wax collecting around the edges of the decal anyway.

waskillywabbit

iTrader: (-1)

I took off the chrome emblems to put on some black pearls. Once the emblems were off with dental floss I was left with a ton of glue gunk residue. I sprayed it with Goof Off, let it sit 15 minutes. Came back, sprayed it again, and waited 15 minutes. Came back and rubbed the bulk of it all off with a cotton cloth and my finger, with little to no effort. Goof off is the way to go! I got it at Lowe's.

Then, to get all the rest of the little junk that is still stuck to the paint...

I broke out the PC and the clay bar and clayed and polished those areas, then swabbed them with some alchohol, then put on my new emblems.

Good luck!

kyle_22r

actually...

check bob bridge toyota(www.bobbridge.com). they have stripes going way back, i could even get a set for my '79. would be a good place for me to start if i ever want the awesome '81 quad color setup(white hood and upper fenders, red and orange stripe from the door to the front, and blue below the stripe and on the bed)

Waterboy

I second that, I like the stripes.....even if I'm agreeing with a Canadian. J/K I grew up on the border so we always trash talked each other.