Roof Wrap

I was very excited to be doing this roof wrap as this involved working with a large piece of vinyl which can sometimes be tricky if you don’t think about what you are doing first.
For the wrap I was using Oracal 970 which I have never worked with before and found it a bit stiffer than Avery and the adhesive has a lot more tack.

The first step was to remove the roof trim so I did a quick google search to see how these come off. Obviously each car can be slightly different but the general idea is the same. The front part needed to be unclipped so I used a trim removal tool from a kit I purchased on eBay. This made the job a lot easier and also made sure there was no damage to the paint. The next step was to slide the strip towards the front on the right side of the car and towards the rear on the left side.

The roof also has an aerial so to remove this I had to remove the roof liner clips along the back to drop the roof liner and access the nut that holds the aerial in place. Once again my trim removal tool kit came in handy for this and ensured the clips were not damaged. To make things easier I also removed the trim pieces on either side of the rear window to allow the roof liner to drop a bit further. It was still a tight squeeze to get my hand in there with a spanner to undo the nut and disconnect the aerial cable.

Once the aerial was out I moved on to cleaning and preparing. I clay barred the surface using a car soap and water solution and then moved onto cleaning between the rubber seals. This seems like an easy task but there was so much crap between them as the car is a few years old. I was using and IPA solution and a microfiber towel wrapped around a plastic store account card as a normal squeegee was too thick to get in between the seal. I had to make several passes before I could get most of the dirt out.

To cut out the vinyl I measured the length of the roof from front to back and made sure there was enough excess on either side. The width of the roll is wide enough to cover the roof from side to side with plenty of excess. Once the piece was cut I placed it on the roof and held it in place with magnets.

I started to peel the liner from the front and then place magnets on the front 2 corners to keep it in place while I peeled back the rest of the liner. While I tried my best to be as smooth as possible and not create any wrinkles, the end result was not ideal once all the liner was removed as there was a large amount of excess vinyl in the middle. This is something that a second person would be really handy to help with.

To sort out the mess I stood on a step to get as high as possible and grabbed the vinyl from the corners so I could lift one half and then lay it down again. This did not work well as the high tack of the vinyl made it very hard to get the wrinkles out before it stuck back down on the panel. As I was pulling up the vinyl quickly for it to unstick it would rebound and stick back down again too quickly.

After a few attempts I realized I had to change my technique. When you lift the vinyl you have to also pull it towards you as quickly as possible to get it nice and tight before it rebounds and sticks back down. I lost count of how many times I lifted the vinyl as I would get one side down nicely and then when I would lift the other side it would create wrinkles in the area I had already fixed. I also tried using magnets to keep one side in place while I was lifting the other side but I was worried about ripping the vinyl.

This shows how important it is to get the vinyl down a smooth as possible when you remove the liner to avoid lifting up over and over as you risk getting dust under the film.

Once the vinyl was laid down fairly flat I began to squeegee from the middle out but was getting a lot of bubbles. I used my wrap glove to rub out the bubbles but you have to be very patient and not rush this. You have to allow time for the air to escape between the air channels or you risk creating creases in the film.
After about half an hour I had finally squeegeed down the entire roof.

When thinking later on about how this went I realized it would have been better when I was peeling back the liner to remove a small amount and get that bit down flat and then gradually remove the liner and keep laying down the vinyl without wrinkles.

Now that I was up to trimming and tucking the edges I realized I had not laid down masking tape so I had to lift each edge and run a strip of tape. This is to prevent the vinyl from sticking down so it can be easily lifted off and tucked into the roof rail channels. It also allowed me to trim the sides by cutting along the masking tape and not risk cutting the paint.

When trimming the front and back windows I ran the blade along the rubber seal as the gap between the end of the roof and the rubber seal would leave just the right amount of vinyl to tuck behind the seal. Before getting to the end with the knife I cut at a 45 degree angle to create a tab to ensure there was enough to cover the corner.

A trick that I had seen to help with tucking vinyl between rubber windows seals is to cut a piece of backing paper and fold it in half with the smooth side on the outside. This can then be used to slide between the panel and the rubber seal and makes it easier for the vinyl to slide into the gap. I then used the same plastic card that I used earlier to clean between the seals to tuck the vinyl behind the seal. The trick here is to tuck small sections at a time and not run the card along the vinyl as this can create creases.

Once the front and back were tucked in it was onto the sides which was pretty straight forward as the masking tape along the side rails made tucking the vinyl into the rail channel easy. I made sure to lift the edge of the vinyl and feed it into the corner of the channel and not bridge it. I didn’t want to force it in as there would be a risk of it lifting later on and this area collects a lot of water so you don’t want water to get under the wrap here.

To cut the excess off, I cut on the car which is not ideal but I was very careful and used light pressure on the knife. This is an area where you can run some knifeless tape beforehand but I did not think about it earlier. I finally ran the heat gun along the edges and made sure that the vinyl had good adhesion as once again if the vinyl is not down correctly you can risk it lifting later and letting water and dirt in.

Before replacing the roof trim I removed all the clips and gave them a clean as well as the trim itself. To replace the trim it is best to place the clips onto the tabs in the channel and then the trim simply clicks into place. I then replaced the antenna and gave the vinyl a wipe down with IPA again. I also used some spray wax on the final wipe down to give the vinyl some protection.

Later on after thinking about the while process and what I had done wrong/could have done better I came up with the following:

• I should have removed the liner bit by bit and made sure the vinyl was glassed before removing more liner. This would have avoided having to repeatedly lift the vinyl which resulted in a couple of bits of dust/dirt under the vinyl and some glue lines.
• Masking off the required areas at the start
• Laying down knifeless tape into the channel
• Using a spray wax or soapy water when squeegeeing to avoid scratches. I did this initially but in trying to get bubbles out and get the vinyl flat I forgot to keep using it.

Overall I was pretty happy with my result and I knew the areas that needed improving and practice. The thing I realized the most was that the cleaning, preparation and hardware removal and replacement can take almost as much time as the wrap itself but this will ultimately make the end result much better if you take the time to do it right.