hey all. so i bought my h2 and it is great and very clean, but there is one thing that I am not sure i like anymore after the two whole days of owning it.
it has one of those stick on wood or whatever dash kits on it.

so my question is does anyone know how to remove the kit pieces to leave the original dash pieces?

also, since i know that the finish on these interior plastic pieces tends to be a bit weak, does anyone know the best way to refinish or recolor them so that they wont easily chip or scuff off

 

You can remove all the trim pieces , take the wood off and have them Hydro Dipped. A carbon fiber or satin black dip would look good.

 

So you have sticker wood grain over the stock pieces is what I'm gathering? Those should just peel off, if you're careful leaving the stock rubbery coating intact. Worst case, rip them up and have them dipped as mentioned above or paint them.

 

Thanks. So they wont do anything to the plastic, is what I am getting from your posting?
Also, does anyone know of a good place to have them "dipped"

 

Since I own a graphics company and out specialty is vinyl graphics I'll chime in.... I have 15+ years experience removing old vinyl graphics.

On some bits it might help to remove the vinyl with the piece still installed in the vehicle. That way it is safely held down and in place. How easily it removes will depend on the type of vinyl, and the type of adhesive it has. Since there are dozens of different brand there is no way to tell... I'd first try heating it some with a heat gun or hair dryer. Then use a thin bit of plastic to get under the edge of the material to get it started and with luck it will be a good quality material which will remove easier and take most if not all of its adhesive up with it.

You do not want to use any metal tools as you will gouge the plastics up. We get Lil Chizlers but the box of 1000 but you can buy smaller quantities on Amazon. Excellent little plastic scrapers that serve a LOT of purposes including this sort of thing, scraping adhesives off, etc without gouging up plastics or paint.

Here is a 3 pack - pricey.... but you have to get into larger quantities to start getting them for far less than a buck each.

If any adhesive is left you have few choices that will be safe on plastics and certain types of paint. Our go to is Goo Gone, specifically. NOT Goof Off, not something else. Goo Gone. It is a citrus based product that is safe on most any type of plastic. Wet a paper towel with it and keep it on the adhesive for a few minutes giving it a little time to soften the adhesive then use a plastic blade to scrape it off. Repeat as necessary until it is all removed. Then clean the surface with some soap and water.

Here is an ever better find on Amazon - a small kit of Goo Gone and some plastic razor blades. We also use tons of those same type of blades. We literally go through thousands of them a year. They dull very very fast but are very safe on most any type of surface....

As far as refinishing the plastics. You can do it yourself but to do it RIGHT is time consuming and tedious. I'd get paints from SEM as well as some of their plastic bonding primer. They have a couple of types that depend on the type of plastic. One is not really a primer but a solvent spray that actually attacks the plastic and softens the surface. That is perfect but you must then paint it literally within the next minute or so. The paint then essentially melts into the plastic a tiny bit becoming part of the plastic itself. That method does not work with all types of plastic though. I think that is mostly for pure ABS which coincidentally is what many of our interior plastics are made of. Aside from that there are also primers/adhesion promoters specifically for plastics. They key to an excellent finish is 90% prep. The actual painting is also important as well though. You must use multiple very light coats and spray evenly and carefully. There is a member on here who just recently posted that he is offering refinishing of the plastics as a service. Its not cheap to pay someone else to do it though. Does not matter who it is, if they are going to do it right, it will be well into the hundreds of dollars.

 

MixManSC, Do you do the dipping that everyone has been talking about? I also read about someone wanting to do "hydrographics"? I think thats what I read? do you do that?

 

I do not..... I know its a popular option though. No idea on where to get it done.