Well i broke down and bought the stripes from 3rdgendecals.com... however, i dont want to install them myself... probably the one thing i dont want to do on the car myself.. (i am a perfectionist and cannot toerate it if i am only a hair off..)


Long story short, My Black SS will have these stripes... (dont have nice the wheels yet.. just 10 spokes.. ) I am looking for a good place to get them installed in SE michigan.. Anybody have suggestions?



This is SS LS1's car...

 

Those were put on by a sign shop in Grand Rapids. I know the owner of the car and he told me who he had put them on. I did the hockey/manta stripes myself and with the exception of the trunk stripe that I rushed and got wrinkles and have to redo it. Take your time, plan, measure 3 or 4 or 5 times and take your time and it'll turn out fine. I had never done large graphics prior to doing this.

 

Not as hard as you think its going to be, but like GETGONE said measure, remeasure, then measure again.

 

anyone else??

 

Local tint/sign shops usually do all the striping work on police, FD, ambulance and other vehicles. If you ask around in your area, there will be some people with alot of experience in applying decals and stripes. Just make sure they are a reputable business.

Nice choice on the stripes too

 

Agreed with above. Tint shops should be decent with it, same with vinyl sign shops. There's a couple tint shops on Gratiot, if you're over on that SE side of Detroit. If you're on the SW side of Detroit, there's a detailing place that does tint and stuff over in Keego, a buddy of mine works there... I can check and see if they do stripes if you want.

 

SE side of detroit is water...

any of them on the north side of detroit? Say close to woodward and 696?

 

I had a local vinyl shop do it. I thought they were professionals. I was wrong. They didn't do a very good job on it. Next time Im doing it myself. I suggest you do the same.

 

Ok, NE side of Detroit or wherever Gratiot is in relation to Detroit haha. 696 and woodward probably closest would be the one in Keego Harbor over in waterford, atleast that I know of. I'm from Sterling Heights, so I'm not 100% firmiliar with the area.

 

Ok, then how do i do it myself...

it appears to have adhesive on the stripes... do i still wet it down like tint? or just line it up and apply it dry

 

If you do it yourself, it's been years since I've done it but here's a quick how-to, I'm sure someone can come in and fill in any blanks I leave out...

First, I lined up the stripes and then taped one side down where I wanted them to be so they'd be stuck to the car and I could flip the piece onto it's back. After it was on it's back, I took my car washing solution (like 1 ounce for a bucket of water, you just want to lubricate the decal so you can move it around before it dries to the car) and got the car really wet where the decal was going to go. Then I peeled the backing off the decal and flipped the decal back down, adjusted it if it was off (the soapy water helps for this) and then I taped down the other side so it couldn't move around when I had it positioned how I wanted. Then I took a squeegee and got all the airbubbles and water out from under the decal. Let sit and dry in the sun, then peel the top paper off the decal. It worked for me, but like I said it's been a few years, let someone else fill in any blanks or give their way to do it.

 

UM..............NO!

Wade meant well but actually I installed the stripes myself of both my car and the exact same stripes on my Wife's 2001 SS just last fall as I don't trust ANYONE to touch my car. After watching (in person) Jay of 3rdgendecals butcher up the installation of stripes on my friends SS more than once I knew he was NOT going to touch my car after that. I have tinted windows before so I thought I could handle the job myself.

I did have a shop TINT my windows as the rear was done in only one piece and I have no experience in that area and wanted a "Show Quality" tint job on my rear window. But now the tinting company has moved from Holland into the same building as a sign shop in GR........... That probably came up in a conversation with Wade and most likely how he thought I had the stripes installed by someone else............... No big deal but I take pride in the work I have put into the car so I just wanted to set the record straight.

Honestly the hood is not too bad to install but the rear stripes that go under the spoiler and wrap over the curved surface of the hatch are the biggest issue to install peoperly IMO. The little outline pinstripe must be heat shrunk with a heat gun or it will never fit properly. What makes this so difficult is thet fact that the main rear stripe and the outline stripe are not connected so the spacing between the stripes (where the body color shines through) is very easy to get messed up.

I always wondered how GM could install so many on the red 35th anniversary cars in a production setting w/o messing them up until I looked at them in person and found out that GM cheated! Their rear stripes are made different that the hood stripes. The inner and outer stripes on the hood are not connected like the 3rdgendecals are, but on the GM trunk decals the main stripe and the surrounding pinstripe are connected with a clear coat layer which keep the stripe spacing consistant when installing the stripes.

So I guess the GM engineers also saw the hassle of installing the rear stripes and paid for an easier to install solution on just the hatch stripes. Sneaky Bastards!

Greg

 

Did you have bubbles when you installed them? I had several, but they all vanished within a couple months. It's probably been well over three years since I installed mine.

 

Sorry Greg!!! I must have gotten the stripes and the tinting mixed up. I guess when you said they did the Berger stripes there I thought you had yours done there as well. My bad! Damn getting old sucks!

 

I had a few bubbles on my stripes but as the directions said if you let it sit in the sun and cure for a couple days they should all shrink down, which they did. I had to use a pin and ***** out a couple of the large bubbles but that was only about 3 or 4 spots. At least 2 were on the trunk stripe I rushed and it stuck down too quick. DON'T RUSH IT!!!

 

Nope no bubbles, but I can see it would be easy to get some in there. But as you know they will either remove themselves (if they are from trapped water) or just use the pin ***** method as Wade mentioned.

Never install the stripes out in the hot sun or I can almost be sure you will get plenty of bubbles. The paint should be cool to the touch to keep the water film from drying too quickly. Or you won't have a chance to squeege the air/water bubbles out before the vinyl stripes are "Stuck" into position.


Wade..... No Problem bud!! Actually I have never been too impressed with the installations of the Berger vinyl stripes by those sign guys......... yet another reason I installed the stripes myself.


Greg

 

YEAH! That's what bit me with my trunk stripe. Car had been sitting in the garage with the sun shining on the back and when I put the stripe on the water evaporated FAST and totally screwed me! I guess I should be contacting Jay for another trunk stripe so I can fix it this year!

 

i have to agree with a few of the replies here... you need to get yourself a solution made out of water and some sort of soap (dishwashing liquid is good)

make sure you clean the hood first. if you can find a spray bottle (like one of those window cleaner bottles) and fill it up with the solution, unpeel the sticker and spray the sticky side with the solution... and spray it on the hood also (or the trunk or whatever part of the car youre gonna stick it on), then slowly place the sticker on.. of course it would be better to measure first before you stick it...

either way, after putting the sticker on, if any bubbles do come out, smoothen them out with a squeege slowly, most of the solution will come out from under the sticker too... any very resistant bubles (as long as theyre not too big) will come out easily with the squeege the next day after the solution dries out completely...

if you really did screw it up you can just remove the sticker and do it all over again as its not gonna stick from the first time because of the solution

 

Instructions I had for the fluid are: Get a quart spray bottle. Mix up two thirds water, one third alcohol(I used the 90% isopropyl rubbing alcohol). Put in 10 drops of liquid dish soap in the mix. Shake it up so it gets mixed together well. You want both the car and the grapic to be wet(sticker side of the graphic after you peel off the backing). You want the fluid to allow the graphic to slide around and not stick yet till you get it positioned where you want it then squeegee it down so it sticks.

 

Thanks guys, i think i may give it a shot. Too bad you guys arent a little closer.. id definately be willing to $$ to get a hand. If i screw up.. its only another $200+ to get new ones.. lol