removing that horrible looking side molding off my Formula!

::Before::



::After::




Whatcha think?! Better or worse?

Here a lil somethin extra for for kicks!

That looks a lot better. I hate those moldings. No reason to have them anyway, most vehicles sit too high up for them to be effective.

Looks good. I've got not only the side moldings off my 97 but the nose bird badge and all the name badging off it too including the center fill panel. To me it makes it easier to wax/polish and keep clean for shows if I don't have to spend hours getting the wax/polish that inevitably finds it's way around and under the spaces with those. Plus it's sorta funny watching other drivers, especially ricers, trying to figure out what I'm driving.

But I do still have all of the badging and molding on my 99 yet. It's still there since my late husband liked it that way particuarly where the Trans Am is on the doors since when I bought the car those words were done up in brushed aluminum and you don't see many done that way.

Wasnt sure bout taking off the Formula Badge on the side or not... I kinda like it on there but then again I dont... got mixed feelings.. I at least want people to know its a Formula and what will hand their ###### to em.

Looks nice! You did a great job ... now clean the garage ...

Looks GREAT!

How did you go about removing it? I"d like to do the same on my car. I've heard of this "rubber wheel" that will remove stripes and what not. I didn't know if you would need that to get the glue off?

It's actually really easy to remove the side moldings, at least on a 4th gen. All you need is a piece of either fishing line or dental floss, a very small flat-head screwdriver, a small rag and something like Goo-B-Gone to remove any remaining adhesive.

What you do is take a corner of the rag and put on over the tip of the screwdriver so you don't scratch the paint and using the tip carefully pry/lift up the end of the molding. Once you have the end of the molding lifting up, you slide the fishing line/dental floss under that part that's lifted to help get more of it released from the car. Then once you get enough of the molding up so that you can get a good grip on it you remove the fishing line/dental floss and then just steadily and carefully pull the molding away from the car. Once you have it removed you use the rag and Goo-B-Done (following the directions on the bottle) to remove any remaining adhesive left on the car. After that you just give the car a good washing to remove any traces of the Goo-B-Gone and rewax the car.

As for decals, I've never removed actual decals, but I've heard that you can get a product at either automotive paint supply shops or auto parts stores that will help remove those. But if you want to be sure just make a post in the Exterior forum asking about those. I'm sure someone here as removed them and can tell you how to do it.

Unless you really really want those decals off it's not worth it. I spent several weekends removing the body stripes from my formula. They were baked on hard from the Florida sun. I tried everything I could get my hands on from goo-b-gone to lacquer thinner to remove the old hardened glue and NOTHING would touch it. I ended up using rubbing compound (yea I can hear y'all cringing) with LOTS of water. It came off but if you look real close you can see small swirls left from the rubbing compound. I'm hoping a Zaino treatment will get rid of the swirls but with the holidays and such I haven't had the time to try it. Since your car isn't as old as mine you may have better luck

Now you have me thinking that side molding has to go too, they look very weathered.

The rubber wheel your talking about is actually called a Eraser Wheel, because its made from those big white/tan erasers you see in schools.

I own one and it runs around 15 bucks off a tool truck. Its great for taking off Vynal (sp?) stickers and stripes. You just gotta be careful not to go to hard and fast with it or it will scorch the paint.

As for the side moldings you can simply "Rub" the double sided tape off then go back over it with Goo B Gone and it should take 90% of the glue/adhesive off.. then do a wash job. You'll prolly notice up close where the molding USED to be but after a few washes it tends to fade.