What is a good chemical product to dissolve household masking tape residue from automobile's exterior paint and rubber door seals without damaging either?

-mineral spirits?
-Goo Gone?
-Ronsonol lighter fluid?
-other, what would a competent body/paint shop use to remove goo from vehicle exteriors without damaging paint or rubber trim?



I , like an idiot greenhorn, used a 5-year-old roll of brown paper Scotch masking tape. I now know better by Google search I should have used special automotive masking tape. Now it's **** near impossible to remove the sticky goo from my rubber door seals but I was able to get it off the paint and windows with long, hard hours of rubbing with a blue kitchen scratch pad for teflon pans and warm soapy water.

I tried to repaint the door trim around the windows on the driver side on my 95 Corolla (please see signature below). I have been working on this for five days now. The weather in Lawton, Oklahoma is miserable. Windy and now it's raining hard. Very tough to try do automobile trim painting with a rattle spray can out of doors. I live in an apartment with no garage or carport to work on my car.

I sanded the metal then used Rustoleum Paint + Primer got at Lowe's and it puddled and mottled badly. I then tried Rustoleum semi-gloss black paint and it ran like the devil. I sanded this stuff off back to bare metal again and then used a 99 cent can of generic flat paint from Home Depot. I did not prime the bare metal for fear of mottling. The cheap flat black paint did manage to go on evenly without running but I don't know how long it will last without a primer coat underneath.

After the rain, I will have to try to finish my project both front and rear doors, driver side, before the cold winter sets in.

I certainly will need a GOOD tape that will peel off clean even after a couple days exposed to the sun.

I wanted to renew my badly-paint-damaged door trim pieces (the sheetmetal surrounding the door windows that the prior owner screwed up) but don't want to pay a body shop $200-$500 to do this measly work on my old but reliable Toyota. I'm trying to make the most out of a rattle can.

Any recommendations for a good auto body tough adhesive remover I can buy as a private individual and automobile masking tape would help me much.

What do car detailers use for tree sap on paint? Will that work miracles to recover my vehicle from a bad masking tape job to boot?

3M makes an adhesive remover that works very well.

In a pinch WD40 will also remove adhesive.

'68 Coronet R/T wrote:3M makes an adhesive remover that works very well.

In a pinch WD40 will also remove adhesive.

I will try WD-40 in conjunction with a plastic ice scraper and a blue scrubber pad.

Does 3M auto masking tape come off cleanly?

What is the practical shelf life of a roll of auto masking tape? Will an old roll of auto masking tape that has been sitting in a tool cabinet drawer for several years no longer peel from car body surface easily?

For your tape an autobody supply store is your best. bet be aware that 3M makes house masking tape also you want automotive grade tape. if you use the WD-40 make sure you have something good to clean it off. for the black paint Google Sem trim paint it good stuff and comes in different shades of black.
Jay D.

badsix wrote:For your tape an autobody supply store is your best. bet be aware that 3M makes house masking tape also you want automotive grade tape. if you use the WD-40 make sure you have something good to clean it off. for the black paint Google Sem trim paint it good stuff and comes in different shades of black.
Jay D.

After using any adhesive remover, I would wash the car immediately afterward. I've used WD-40 for door latches, locks, hinges, hoods and trunks and when it ran over the car's paint, it never caused damage. I would wipe excess off with a cloth.

The paint on my Toyota reliable "beater" isn't the best of condition anyway but it's not horrible for a 1995 vehicle which was repainted (by some shoddy cheap Russian outfit in Sacramento, CA) in 2000 by the previous old-widower owner after a major accident with his stupid young daughter's driving the car. The Corolla DX has a salvage/reconstructed title and I got the thing in 2013 for $2,300 and 89K original mostly-city miles.

I will have to continue my door trim paint project when better weather comes and when I secure better paint masking materials.

I won't use tape on rubber door seals any more but use strips of aluminum foil to mask those parts from over spray unless those should be removed from the doors before painting around the window surrounds. The doorpost/jamb and upper bodywork behind the door window frames would have to be then be taped.

I might try SEM paint when I resume my project. I will have to sand off that one thin coat of cheap flat paint to bare metal first. The nice thing according to SEM website is it needs no primer. I probably shoud also remove the upper parts oft eh door weather seals too and mask behind them.

What is good technique for spraying SEM so it goes on even and doesn't;'t run on these vertical surfaces? Well-shaken can? Temperature? Humidity? Wind conditions? Time before applying thin coats? Fine wet sanding between coats?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aKcN2cuP54

I have been happy using the 3M yellow masking tape, it seems to hold better than the green and removes cleanly.

I would use some type of solvent to wipe off the W/D-40 or at least some dish soap and water. W/D is likely to cause fish eyes.
Jay D.

'68 Coronet R/T wrote:I have been happy using the 3M yellow masking tape, it seems to hold better than the green and removes cleanly.

I live in a hillbilly town in flyover country, Lawton, Oklahoma, and there is no good auto body supply store around that has what I need so I just ordered these items from ammuh-zonn-dot-com:





The local yokels go to Lowe's and buy ordinary household rattle-can paint to spray their old rusty trucks or whatever. Rich people take their cars to a body shop for professional painting. I certainly wouldn't be rattle-canning an expensive vehicle. Since I'm a good driver and accidents tend to be the other driver's fault, I would make their insurance carrier fix my high-value car or truck if I owned one. Since I have a solid-transportation old Toyota I don't want to get that fancy and spendy with paint work and other cosmetics but at least make it look presentable at a modest cost. Certainly what I ordered from amazon.com will be superior minor auto paint repair materials than what I can conjure up at Lowe's.

I buy nearly everything online. Nearest autobody store is an hour away and not to be trusted.

ALL my supplies to do my truck build were bought online. They closed down my "good" paint jobbers around me. Nearest one now is 45 minutes from here and they don't care to deal with the "little" guys anymore.....