mrfarmdog Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 INTRODUCTION - Someone keyed the hood of my friend's SGT not long ago. Luckily the paint ended up being OK but the stripes were damaged. He brought it over to let me look at it and luckily I had some Oracal vinyl that matched exactly. He was quoted $250 at a sign shop to cut these stripes. I figure even with the excess waste of material we used in cutting several stripes we ended up using less than $50 in materials. I created a set of stripes for him from scratch and we installed them in my dining room. Unfortunately we did not get a lot of pictures of the detailed steps but I have included some pics below so you can see the final result. TOOLS NEEDED Two People Plastic Squeegee 1 inch roll painters tape Scissors Window tint install spray (purchased from local parts store). You can use water and about a tsp of dawn dish soap in a spray bottle as well. NOTE - This was my first time trying to install this type vinyl as stripes on a car. It is much thinner than the 3M stripes that come on the GT500s. Putting it on wet is essential. The most difficult part is keeping the stripes straight as they reach the front of the hood. You just need patience to succeed. We were not happy with our initial stripe we installed due to it getting off our tape guide so we removed it and I cut another stripe. We had that affordability since I have my own vinyl cutter. You may not. VINYL STRIPES - Other stripes I have seen are cut from the Oracal wrapping cast product. The ones we created are from the Premium 851M (M=Metallic) series graphics vinyl. The color we used was Silver Grey-090. We matched this up to the stripes through visual comparison to the hood stripes on the car. You will need to make your own determination as to which color to use if you do this yourself. Any sign shop should have samples that you can use to compare. Here is a link to the Oracal 851M series so you can see the colors for yourself. SURFACE PREPARATION - If you are going to do this you need to ensure your surface is prepared properly. Use isopropyl alcohol to clean all residual waxes off the surface and wipe to ensure there is no striping left when the alcohol evaporates as this indicates you have not cleaned all the wax off. You may need to clean several times to remove all the wax. Also make sure you are installing the stripes in a heated environment, ideally you want the surface to be around 70 degrees. This is why we removed his hood and brought it inside. Here we are laying out the guide tape. We ultimately used one piece down the entire center of the hood. This is essential to make sure your stripes are absolutely straight. MEASUREMENT - SGT stripes are 1 inch apart (1/2 inch from the centerline of the hood in our case). We measured and put one strip of one inch painters tape down the center of the hood to use as a guide. This is very important to make sure that the stripes go on straight. It will be VERY important when you squeegee the stripes down on the front of the hood where it curves down. THE INSTALL - Install one stripe at a time (DUH). To do the install you will need to do it wet. Remove the stripes from the backing tape and lay them upside down on the surface. Spray both the location where the stripes will be installed and the back of the stripes. With a person on each end of the stripe turn the stripe over and place it where it needs to be installed. For the hood the important point is to make sure the stripe is centered around the washer nozzle as this point of reference will be easily seen after the install. If the stripes are off it will be noticed here and on the front of the hood most. Making sure the stripes are centered on the nozzle squeegee the excess water out from under the stripe making sure that the stripe is up against your stripe tape you installed as a guide. Picture of the washer nozzle. Notice that we tried to center the stripe around the washer nozzle as our starting point for the stripe install. We also cut the stripes with rounded corners here as well. This will prevent the stripes from starting to peel in the future. Sharp points on graphics have the tendency to start to pull up over time. Work your way from the back of the hood to the front ensuring all the water and air bubbles are removed. Since the SGT hood has holes in it for the hood scoop bolts, you may have a tendency for air to get underneath the stripe around these holes. Do not worry about that for now. As you continue to squeegee the stripes down and remove the excess water they will adhere to these locations. View from the back of the hood forward. The spots you see under the stripes are the holes in the hood where the hood scoop is installed. There may appear to be more than on your car since my friend opted to drill and install bolts all the way around his scoop to make it fit better on the hood. I believe this is a fix that Shelby is having Ford dealers do but not sure. My friend did it himself and his scoop fits and looks much better now. The hard part about installing hood stripes is where the hood curves down in the front. It not only curves down towards the front but also curves towards the outside. When installing the stripes this will tend to make the stripes want to curve towards the centerline of the hood and not be straight. This is where it is absolutely critical that you use the tape in the center as a guide. View from the front of the hood backward. Continue to squeegee the stripes towards the front of the hood ensuring first that the stripe is flush with the guide tape and then making sure that the stripe is adhered well across the stripe to the outside of the stripe. Due to the curvature of the hood your stripes will not want to lay flat initially towards the outside of the stripe towards the front of the hood. You will just need to be patient and continue to squeegee the water out from under the stripe in these locations. Once the stripe is dry enough underneath the stripe will stick to the hood and you can continue to work further down the hood. When you get to the front of the hood you will notice that the stripe, once again, will not want to easily stick to the hood where it curves down under the front. This is due to the water under the stripe and the fact that the hood is not flat. You will just need to continue to press the water out until it sticks. This can be done with the squeegee or a rag. Patience will pay off, just keep working it and be patient. Finally turn the stripe under the edge of the hood. When you do this the stripe may want to fold over itself in a small area in order to lay flat. This is not an issue and is they way it looks on some factory stripes I have seen so don't worry about it. Alternatively you could cut a small slit in the stripe so that it overlaps easier and lays flat. At this point you are just about done. Look over the stripe again and make sure there are no bubbles or air pockets. If there are try to work them to the outside of the stripe. If they are being difficult to remove then you can take a pin and prick one edge of the bubble and gently remove the water or air. We did not have to do this on either of our stripes. When the stripes are installed they need to set and allow the water to evaporate from underneath. Any water or air bubbles should disappear as the vinyl shrinks and adheres to the hood. They will come out smooth and with a factory installed look! Here are pics of the final product! I hope this helps if someone wants to take this on themselves. MrFarmdog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffIsHereToo Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 VERY NICE! Thanks for posting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Morris Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 great post MFD. this should help alot of folks out. thanks for doing this i know it took along time to type all that out. michael morris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LuLu Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 Bravo! Outstanding contribution. Thank you, sir! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khogle2 Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 very nice job, incredible talent to put those on yourself that well!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrfarmdog Posted February 2, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 very nice job, incredible talent to put those on yourself that well!! Thanks. We put the hood back on his car today and the stripes match exactly and look awesome! I will post more pics when I get some of his car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdear Posted February 2, 2008 Report Share Posted February 2, 2008 Very nice job ! You are a brave soul ! I had my hood stripes replaced early on , and they were messed up by a professional ! They are good now. And WOW..I sure hope my hubby doesn't see you using the dining room table for something like that Great job though..very informational ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrfarmdog Posted February 3, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2008 Very nice job ! You are a brave soul ! I had my hood stripes replaced early on , and they were messed up by a professional ! They are good now. And WOW..I sure hope my hubby doesn't see you using the dining room table for something like that Great job though..very informational ! Believe me every protective measure was taken to spare the dining room table from damage! Who knows, perhaps I will put stripes on that as well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdear Posted February 3, 2008 Report Share Posted February 3, 2008 Your wife might hang you, but you would have a one of a kind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stormeaston Posted February 3, 2008 Report Share Posted February 3, 2008 Great info!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShowCar Posted February 3, 2008 Report Share Posted February 3, 2008 Good Job and great info.The dining room for a workshop NICE!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HIGHFLIGHT Posted February 6, 2008 Report Share Posted February 6, 2008 A very nice job.....I'm studying the effort to remove the Performance White stripes from the black GT500 and replace them with the '08 dark stripe. At 3/4 to 1 mile the car stands out like a frightened deer with its flag up in the air. Too easy for the HP to single out on the interstate highway at distance. It is a big job to get all those small pieces together maybe too big. You know it only takes one person at the factory to apply the stripes on these cars, but he does operate a jig and that helps.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tispco Posted February 6, 2008 Report Share Posted February 6, 2008 Very informative post. Also, great use of the dining room table!! Now I know what I can use it for instead of just collecting dust! :happy feet: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrfarmdog Posted February 6, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2008 A very nice job.....I'm studying the effort to remove the Performance White stripes from the black GT500 and replace them with the '08 dark stripe. At 3/4 to 1 mile the car stands out like a frightened deer with its flag up in the air. Too easy for the HP to single out on the interstate highway at distance. It is a big job to get all those small pieces together maybe too big. You know it only takes one person at the factory to apply the stripes on these cars, but he does operate a jig and that helps.... Then here is the thread you should read... Installing Factory Stripes on Verts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shelbydream1 Posted February 7, 2008 Report Share Posted February 7, 2008 Nicely done-looks great. Out of curiousity, how long did it take? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrfarmdog Posted February 7, 2008 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2008 Nicely done-looks great. Out of curiousity, how long did it take? I worked on it for about 3 days. I little here and there. It would be a full day job and two people would definately be better than trying to do it alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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