Wraptiva – Roof Wrap

I was so eager to start wrapping this car that I decided to start with the roof as it would be one of the easiest panels to wrap and it did not require me to clean the whole car.
Since the car is very old there is a lot of cleaning that is needed to get rid of dirt and grease that is in between all the panels and trim.

I started off by removing the roof rail mouldings with my trim removal tool and it was no surprise that there was a lot of dirt under them. Using an all-purpose cleaner and a brush I got into all the gaps and especially near the front and back windows where most of the dirt had accumulated. Once these areas were clean it was on to cleaning behind the front and back window seals and once again there was a lot of dirt there. It seemed to be almost never ending and I was starting to think that it would spend more time cleaning then actually to wrapping the roof.

After several attempts to clean I decided it was not going to get any cleaner and since the car is so old the rubber seals are not in the best condition so a lot of the black stuff coming off from cleaning was due to the rubber that is deteriorating.
The last step was to quickly clay the surface and then wipe it down with IPA.

Now that the cleaning was done, I applied knifeless tape along the front and back windows making sure that there would be enough vinyl overlap to be able to tuck behind the windows seals. I also ran masking tape along the sides to keep the vinyl from sticking to the paint and make it easier to lift off.

A tip that I have seen is to start off the knifeless tape before applying the vinyl to make it easier later on. It also minimizes the chance of the tape or filament breaking when you pull it.

After a quick wipe over with a tack cloth to remove any dust I placed the vinyl onto the roof and held it in place with magnets. Starting from the front I peeled back some of the liner and tacked the corners down before removing the rest of the liner but keeping the vinyl as close to the surface as possible to keep dust away.

Looking at how the vinyl was now sitting on the surface there was a large wrinkle in the centre of the roof. I immediately knew that this was going to be an issue as it could not be squeegeed out and I needed to lift the vinyl to stretch it out. Since I am using Hexis which is a high tack film, I needed a fair amount of force to lift the vinyl off and it took several attempts of lifting and pulling in triangles to get the vinyl flat. It’s nothing like when you see videos of people wrapping with Avery where the vinyl can be picked up and re positioned with minimal effort.

Now that everyhting was glassed, it was time to trim the edges so the first part was to pull the knifless tape on the front and back windows. I applied some heat with the heat gun and made sure the vinyl and knifelss tape was stuck down well by running my finger along it to make sure the cut would be as clean as possible.

Since I had already pre started the tape before applying the vinyl it was very easy to pull it and make the cut. I then pulled out the green carrier tape making sure to pull away from the vinyl.

Next I moved onto the sides and I could see that there was a lot of excess vinyl so I trimmed it back to a more manageable length by running my knife along the area where I had run the masking tape underneath.

Now it was time to tuck in the front and back but since the car is a hatch back the rear part of the roof does not meet up to the window so there is no rubber seal. All that was needed was to tuck it down into the sill. I could see the edge of the vinyl was wavy meaning it was slightly stretched so before laying it down I ran some heat along it to shrink it back down. I then used my wrap glove and ran my thumb along the edge, gradually laying down more an more vinyl to make sure it went down evenly and not create any wrinkles.

For the front window seal I used the backing liner trick to get between the roof and the rubber seal and used a squeegee to tuck in the vinyl. Since the rubber is very old it has shrunk overt time so it was pretty easy to tuck in as it wasn’t very tight.

The final part was to lay the side into the roof rail recess so once again I used my wrap glove and ran my finger along the edge gradually laying the vinyl down.

To finish off I went around the whole car with the heat gun making sure the edges and corners ware all down and that there was no air bubbles on the roof.

Things I learned

-Wrapping old cars means lots of cleaning. There is dirt and grime everywhere and you would need several hours just to clean under trims and the trims themselves need cleaning as you don;t want to put them back on when they’re dirty

-I should have used knifeless tape on the sides also instead of cutting on the car. I could then run masking tape adjacent to knifeless to keep the vinyl off paint