My 7's glass sunroof has the factory sprayed on, or baked on mirror tint covering it. It is some type of coating on the glass, it is not a film. It looks like they sprayed the tint on and then baked it or something. There is a big flat black band around the edges of the sunroof, which looks almost like black paint. I am trying to find out if there is some way to remove this factory tint/glaze that is on the glass because something has damaged it in spots.

There are several small rusty spots on the mirror finish of the glass, and there are some spots where the mirror finish tint is completely gone. It looks like when you see an old bathroom mirror that has lost its backing and it makes big rusty clouds on it. Hard to describe, but I'm sure many of you have seen this happen before.

So here is the dilemma... I am wanting to completely remove the rest of this factory mirrored tint without damaging the glass. I hoping that I can remove it all and then apply a normal plastic film tint. This is mainly just to improve the appearance, since the tint is really making the glass sunroof look crappy.

I have considered using ammonia to try and remove the spray on tint but didn't know if this would work or not. I also thought about using some NASTY spray on paint remover I have that seems to take off just about anything. Any tips or information you could provide me with would be much appreciated. I can provide pictures of the sunroof if it would help with diagnosis. Thanks!

 

That's a good question. I was under the impression that the tint was in the glass it's
self.

I would contact a glass shop and see what they have to say about the subject.

 

I was originally thinking that the tint was in the glass too. Except, you can see where it has been damaged by something. So it is apparently some type of spray on coating??

 

The tint in the side window glass is a chemical dip. The tint in the roof glass is a thin film/coating, which can get scratched off in places. IIRC, however, there's no real way to remove it. The only option I can think of would be to have limo tint applied to it to mask the lighter spots 9which would still show, but vastly muted) and provide extra shade.

 

Well, at least you have confirmed for me that it is on the outside of the glass. I'm going to see if I can find some way to remove it I think. It looks pretty crappy and I'd like to just re-tint the whole thing to get it looking nice again....

 

I was cleaning the inside of one of my glass sunroofs and accidently caused some scuffs because I was rubbing that mirror finish a little too hard. I backed off, with minimal damage, but if you wanted to get rid of it all together and start over, I would think it would be a straight forward matter of getting some steel wool and either some warm detergent or solvent and scrubbing it off. I was thinking of doing that but I kind of like that mirrored finish as long as it's holding up reasonably well.

 

I'd advise against steel wool as it'd likely scuff and scratch the glass 'neath the tint

 

What about a rubbing/polishing compund and a wheel buffer, might work?

 

If it is some sort of a coating then I would think that something like the Aircraft paint stripper would work.

 

Steel wool won't touch the glass, just make it shine like it's never done before. And I'll bet that mirror stuff will all come off with some hot dish detergent and a small amount of elbow grease.

I just cleaned some overspray off my headlights with some medium steel wool, a visiting rotorhead noticed my shiny headlights first. The polishing compound contains silicate crystals, put a wheel buffer to that and you might get some damage.

 

Probably want to go with either the 0000 or 000 steel wool then, Ray?

 

Not necessarily, the coarse stuff won't hurt it either, but it might not clean it off as fast. The fine stuff get's all clogged up, I'd go with medium. Glass and chrome like steel wool.

 

They were shiny, and I second this opinion. As a matter of fact I am going out later tonight to do this on my headlights anyways.

 

0000 wool is best for cleaning windows and such. Spray a little glass cleaner and your golden!

 

That's what I have used in the past on cars with paint overspray on the glass. ^

 

Sell the one you have (cheap), and buy another one. You're gonna ruin it trying to remove the tint.

 

Okay, here is a little update...

http://users.ticnet.com/mikefirth/mirror.htm

^ I read through that site yesterday and was fully convinced that I could use paint remover to take off the silver mirror coating. I sprayed on some paint stripper and let it sit for about an hour. Wiped it off. It did absolutely nothing. So I'm back to the drawing board I guess. I'm going to see if the steel wool idea will work, but I'm pretty doubtful that it will. That mirror tint is one CRAZY durable finish. I've never seen anything quite like it before. After trying to remove it on purpose, I'm baffled as to how it ever could have been damaged in the first place.

If the steel wool doesnt work then I might give a can of oven cleaner a try. I've used it to clean engine blocks before with a fair amount of success. It worked pretty well. And if that doesn't work then I think the only remaining chemicals that would do it are something like nitric acid, or muriatic acid. I'm not sure that I am brave enough to try either of them. Those are two dangerous chemicals....

 

I was using warm dish detergent when I accidently started to take mine off, and that was without steel wool, have you tried that yet?

 

Ray,

No I haven't given that a shot yet, but I think that I will now that you mention it. What kind of dish detergent were you using? Are we talking boxed powder soap or liquid dawn? Specifics would be much appreciated. Maybe I can come up with a technique that will work to get this stuff off....

Jamie

 

Try the liquid stuff, lots of hot soapy water and either one of those green plastic srubby things or some medium steel wool. Another good detergent is TPS (trisodium phosphate), you can get it at hardware stores.

 

Do you know what brand you were using before? Not that it matters, but I thought I'd be as close to your formula as possible. Just incase there is some type of brand specific chemical in Palmolive or Dawn or whatever it might be, that caused the tint to come off....

 

Turns out to be Dawn liquid dish detergent, but I think any dish detergent would do.

 

Thanks Ray, you've been most helpful. I'll give it a shot tonight and see how it works.

Jamie

 

I remember reading somewhere that you could use old fashion toothpaste.

Jason

 

NO TSP!
Tri-Sodium Phosphate, in strong solution, will etch glass...and just about anything else!