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Removing molded bodykit

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Old Nov 1, 2018 | 03:57 PM
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Hell167's Avatar
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Removing molded bodykit

My new bodykit has arrived for the FD and im going to need to remove the old cracked stuff. Front bumper, both fenders, both side skirts, rear bumper. Normally that would be pretty easy. The problem is that the side skirts and the rear bumper is molded in. Now ive never done this before and google wasnt much help.

What are some of the tools that i would need? Ive read 80 grit sand paper and find the screw/revets. What other stuff would i come up agaist? Can/should i use power tools such as an orbital sander or angle grinder?

Im guessing this is going to be a long process of sanding and removing before i get the car painted. So im going to tackle each side skirt and rear separately. With the rainy season upon us and my car in the rain 1/2 the day should get a filler primer spray can to protect exposed metal at the end of each day?
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Old Nov 2, 2018 | 01:41 PM
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It's hard to say, it depends on how the body kit was attached. Sometimes it's a super clean install, sometimes it's slathered in bondo and double-sided tape. Hard to say.

Having some sort of power method to sand like a random orbital sander would go a long way. Doing by hand would take a million years.

Yes, coating bare metal at the end of the day is a good idea. Most any primer would do good just to protect the bare metal until it's time to fully paint and body work.

Dale
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Old Nov 2, 2018 | 03:59 PM
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https://www.eastwood.com/rockwood-ri...e-grinder.html

Use that with small 1-2 inch sanding disk. I'd probably start with 36 grit to save some time but be careful...
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Old Nov 3, 2018 | 03:02 PM
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Thanks for all the replies. Everything came off fairly quickly, both side skirts and rear bumper were grounded off within 2hrs. All though it was a huge mess it was easily cleaned up by simply spraying some water.

i first taped around the doors with the door open then plastic to seperate the interior from the dust cloud that will soon appear. Used an angle grinder with an 80grit sanding disc and found all the edges of the fiberglass and ground it down to where you can see holes in the fiberglass. Then heat gun to loosen some sort of black glue(not quite the same stuff as on the doors) with some pulling and it came off. Used a scraping blade to remove as much of the glue that stayed. After that it was just the matter of grinding off the rest of the bondo till i saw metal. And a spray of primer.

Ready to test fit the new kit.
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