Almost two years?

I’ll blame the lack of progress on COVID. And I’ve been working full-time while going to community college to get a degree in AutoCAD. More on that later…

I have actually managed to get some work done during this time. The most visible change is the removal of almost all of the old decals and helicopter tape. What a mess! The car hasn’t been changed in twenty years so some of that decal glue had plenty of time to harden. A lot of the decals came off with just a little heat, but others took Goo Gone and/or acetone and a lot of rubbing. But the decals were nothing compared to the helicopter tape! And there was a ton of it.

The race teams use helicopter tape on all of the body panel joints to streamline the car and reduce turbulence. But these guys also used it as a clear bra to protect the bodywork. It was everywhere: all over the nose cone, the leading edges of the wings, on the sidepods, even on the leading edges of the A-arms. And it would not peel off because the plastic tape part had completely broken down. By the time I applied enough heat to the loosen up the adhesive, the plastic tape would tear and melt. So what followed were uncountable hours with the heat gun trying to find just the right temperature to melt the adhesive and scrape it away without getting everything too hot and damaging the paint and carbon fiber underneath. Then more Goo Gone, acetone and rubbing. But I did find a trick, a 3M Eraser Wheel. It's a great big eraser on a shaft that you put in your drill to remove some of the residual glue. They say that it will work on the decals themselves, but that didn’t work for me. I removed as much of the decal and glue that I could with heat and then I went back with the eraser wheel to knock off a lot of the remaining adhesive. It really reduced the amount of final cleaning with chemicals, so I recommend it if you ever have a bunch of adhesive to remove.