Zach Woods
New member
The following is archival - originally found on the Yahoo Sprinter Westfalia Group.
This is most useful for the newer Sprinters which have the "dreaded black goo" adhesive. I did not have the black adhesive and found this process much easier than what is described here.
*****
MB grill conversion; Here's how I did it
Ok, it's finally done and I feel like I should share the process to hopefully make it easier for the next guy. This is how I did it on my 2005 Westy.
1) Pry off the the chrome plastic form the black plastic that's glued to the hood. This makes it easier to heat and grab the black backing.
2) I heated the plastic with a heat gun (think super duty hair dryer) with a wet towel protecting the paint. The corners you can kinda start working away. If you're lucky all you'll see is 2 strips of double sided tape. In my case there was an additional thick bead of hard black goo down the center with the tape above and below it. It sounds like Dodge started doing this with latter vans (As to make it impossible to do the conversion, HA! I'll
show you Dodge).
3) I really don't think the urethane black glue is affected by the heat but heating the plastic makes it easier the pull away. I pretty much just got a corner of the plastic up and grabbed it with vice grips and PULLED. The plastic would break away and leave the bead exposed. At no point did the glue come away from the paint.
4) At this point I used the "Smart Eraser Pad" made by Astro Pneumatic Tool Company. I got mine at Car Qwest. (Thanks to Scott for the tip.) It's like a 3 3/4" tan soft rubber wheel you put in a drill. It's really cool you can use it to take off the double sided tape easily. I used some 3M adhesive remover (from same place) to clean up the last of the goo.
5) Now the real fun starts. This urethane glue is really stuck to the paint. I guess you could use the wheel all the way but I cut as much of it away as possible first. I took an 8 in. piece of duct tape, in the middle on one edge I covered the thick "back" of a single edged razor blade then folded the tape over so you have an 8in x 1in strip with the blade sticking out in the middle. It makes it like a draw knife. You can rest the tape covered backbone on the paint and use the "handle" tape to make small sawing movements. That got the bead down to a more manageable thickness. You might be able to use this technique to cut the glue with the plastic backer attached, I'd already pulled it off.
6) From here it was the wheel all the way down to the paint. You have to use the wheel all the way, I couldn't find any solvent that would take off even the thinnest bit. This little sucker is amazing in that for the most part it gets the black stuff but doesn't seem to hurt the paint. I went thru 2 wheels and untold hours but I finally got it all off.
In the end I think the paint could use a little buffing and I nicked the paint once with the razor blade before I figured out the draw knife thing. All in all I think it was worth it, especially considering the mess I found myself in when I discovered the "horrible black goo". The guys at the body shop I talked to sounded like they were going to do the same thing, considering how long it took I'm glade I went for it.
Hope this helps
Ps. How do you put on the "Mercedes Benz" lettering for the back door thart comes with the grill conversion kit?
This is most useful for the newer Sprinters which have the "dreaded black goo" adhesive. I did not have the black adhesive and found this process much easier than what is described here.
*****
MB grill conversion; Here's how I did it
Ok, it's finally done and I feel like I should share the process to hopefully make it easier for the next guy. This is how I did it on my 2005 Westy.
1) Pry off the the chrome plastic form the black plastic that's glued to the hood. This makes it easier to heat and grab the black backing.
2) I heated the plastic with a heat gun (think super duty hair dryer) with a wet towel protecting the paint. The corners you can kinda start working away. If you're lucky all you'll see is 2 strips of double sided tape. In my case there was an additional thick bead of hard black goo down the center with the tape above and below it. It sounds like Dodge started doing this with latter vans (As to make it impossible to do the conversion, HA! I'll
show you Dodge).
3) I really don't think the urethane black glue is affected by the heat but heating the plastic makes it easier the pull away. I pretty much just got a corner of the plastic up and grabbed it with vice grips and PULLED. The plastic would break away and leave the bead exposed. At no point did the glue come away from the paint.
4) At this point I used the "Smart Eraser Pad" made by Astro Pneumatic Tool Company. I got mine at Car Qwest. (Thanks to Scott for the tip.) It's like a 3 3/4" tan soft rubber wheel you put in a drill. It's really cool you can use it to take off the double sided tape easily. I used some 3M adhesive remover (from same place) to clean up the last of the goo.
5) Now the real fun starts. This urethane glue is really stuck to the paint. I guess you could use the wheel all the way but I cut as much of it away as possible first. I took an 8 in. piece of duct tape, in the middle on one edge I covered the thick "back" of a single edged razor blade then folded the tape over so you have an 8in x 1in strip with the blade sticking out in the middle. It makes it like a draw knife. You can rest the tape covered backbone on the paint and use the "handle" tape to make small sawing movements. That got the bead down to a more manageable thickness. You might be able to use this technique to cut the glue with the plastic backer attached, I'd already pulled it off.
6) From here it was the wheel all the way down to the paint. You have to use the wheel all the way, I couldn't find any solvent that would take off even the thinnest bit. This little sucker is amazing in that for the most part it gets the black stuff but doesn't seem to hurt the paint. I went thru 2 wheels and untold hours but I finally got it all off.
In the end I think the paint could use a little buffing and I nicked the paint once with the razor blade before I figured out the draw knife thing. All in all I think it was worth it, especially considering the mess I found myself in when I discovered the "horrible black goo". The guys at the body shop I talked to sounded like they were going to do the same thing, considering how long it took I'm glade I went for it.
Hope this helps
Ps. How do you put on the "Mercedes Benz" lettering for the back door thart comes with the grill conversion kit?