The Side stripes on my car are in bad shape. Touched up in places with black electrical tape etc, I've been looking at how to make up some replacements.
The originals are multi-layer stickers. I'm not sure if mine are factory or faded as the text is more yellow that orange. I'd prefer orange text I think but someone chime in if that mismatch was intentional.
I set about seeing how hard they would be to remove. Darned near impossible. The black comes off easily along with the clear overcoating, but the yellow appears to be some made of impregnanium alloy with a transparent diamondite shell bonded with the same glue they use on pickle jar lids. Neither chemical sticker removers nor the eraser wheel seems to have any effect at all. I'm afraid of damaging the door at this point if I try any harder without specific guidance.
I was thinking of laser cut vinyl replacements allowing the paint to show through where the letters are, but with the original letters being so stubborn that may not be feasible. Now I'm leaning toward full color printed fleet graphics with the letters and black strips all printed as a single graphic on vehicle grade vinyl. I used a very similar font to the original, but it is a little different. A purist/perfectionist would notice the difference but unless two cars were side by side and you were looking for differences, I think its going to pass muster 99%+ of the time and be a lot better than the mess that's on there now. I can get a set of 4 printed up online for less than $100 shipped and have spares, or I can possibly even print them at work if I order the correct vinyl for our photo plotter.
I've got the artwork more or less ready to go. I just wanted to check in here and see what others have done to remove or replace the stickers on the car. I suspect they came off easier 20 years ago than now, and that the more upscale graphics packages have been reproduced, but not what I'm trying to do here. Any tips or leads appreciated.
If anyone needs side stripes like this let me know.