How to remove military sticker from front fork?

cos_fz1

cos_fz1

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I bought my 2008 FZ1 from a guy in the Air Force. He had to have a sticker on his bike to allow him to park on base. The sticker is located on the front fork. I have tried to get the sticker off with Goo Gone but no luck. I am looking for ideas of other things I could try to get the sticker off. Thanks in advance.
 
cos_fz1 said:
I bought my 2008 FZ1 from a guy in the Air Force. He had to have a sticker on his bike to allow him to park on base. The sticker is located on the front fork. I have tried to get the sticker off with Goo Gone but no luck. I am looking for ideas of other things I could try to get the sticker off. Thanks in advance.
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keep it on if you ever wanna watch some awesome fighterjets take off at close sight :th_smiley_rotfl2[1]

serious: in general aceton can do the trick, but I do not know whether it will damage the paint on the fork...try first on something old metallic with similar painted surface
 
Removing Sticker

Try a hair dryer. Use low heat and be careful around plastic and rubber(cover with wash cloth). Start with a fingernail under a corner. Once you have enough to grip just peel slowly. Usually the heat softens the adhesive. Use goo-gone to remove remaining adhesive.
 
cos fz1,

The Goo Gone will work, but first you need to strip some of the sticker off so it can work it's way under the sticker and get to the glue. I have carefully used a plastic paint scraper to score the sticker, then soak with GG and scrape, repeat. Previous owner should have done this already.

Good Luck,

MrHix

P.S. Good Idea FZ ONE!
 
MrHix said:
cos fz1,

The Goo Gone will work, but first you need to strip some of the sticker off so it can work it's way under the sticker and get to the glue. I have carefully used a plastic paint scraper to score the sticker, then soak with GG and scrape, repeat. Previous owner should have done this already.

Good Luck,

MrHix

P.S. Good Idea FZ ONE!
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He was kind of in a hurry to sell the bike and he mentioned that he should have taken the sticker off. I bought the bike for $4300 and it only had about 1700 milies when I got it. Thanks for the idea.
 
cos_fz1 said:
He was kind of in a hurry to sell the bike and he mentioned that he should have taken the sticker off. I bought the bike for $4300 and it only had about 1700 milies when I got it. Thanks for the idea.
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That was quite a deal you got! I think you have plenty of good suggestions already. The forks are anodized, not painted so it's pretty impervious to most chemicals. However, the coating is quite thin so be careful you don't scratch it.
 
Just FYI, these stickers are designed to shred when you take them off, so while you are removing it don't get frustrated when they don't come off in one piece. have fun!
 
FZ ONE said:
Try a hair dryer. Use low heat and be careful around plastic and rubber(cover with wash cloth). Start with a fingernail under a corner. Once you have enough to grip just peel slowly. Usually the heat softens the adhesive. Use goo-gone to remove remaining adhesive.
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I may try this one first, thanks.
 
sticker trouble

All the above ideas are good. For hair drier don't go overboard on the heat. The type of sticker that is designed to come off in pieces I am very familiar with, and too much heat just makes it break into smaller bits. If it is plasticized paper (plastic coating over a paper layer) then tear off the surface and smear a little vegetable oil over it. Just enough to cover the decal and allow to sit for an hour. The adhesive will easily come of with a dry cloth after that.
 
If it is a decal that chips away, hit it with the heat and then grab some duct tape that is about the same size and after you start an edge, peel it with the duct tape. It still may take a few tries but you'll get more of it each pass.
 
FZ ONE said:
Try a hair dryer. Use low heat and be careful around plastic and rubber(cover with wash cloth). Start with a fingernail under a corner. Once you have enough to grip just peel slowly. Usually the heat softens the adhesive. Use goo-gone to remove remaining adhesive.
Click to expand...
what He said. PB Blaster will take off the glue. I used a single edged razor blade to scrape off most of the foil sticker. then once a bunch of cuts were on the sticker 75% of it buggered up the PB Blaster started desolving it up pretty good, and it finally took about 20 minuates to get back to clean tubes.
 
Got the sticker off

Temp outside is about 30F, in the garage it is probably a little warmer. I did this in the garage.

Using the hair dryer was very helpful.

I heated up the fork and the sticker for about 2 or 3 minutes. When I tried to get the sticker coner up, the sticker would just break in very small pieces. I did not try the try the duck tape because I could not get a big enough corner piece to come up.

My wife let me borrow a small cake plastic decorating spatula that would not scratch the fork. In one hand i held the hair dryer and in the other hand I used the spatula to get under the sticker and still only small pieces would come up but eventually I got the sticker off. After the sticker was off I used some Goo Gone to take off the glue on the fork.

Thanks again for all of the suggestions. The picture shows the finished product.
 
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