today was not my day at all, got up to plasti dip the lower portion of my rear bumper, spent 30 minutes taping everything off, sprayed the thing and tried to remove the tape before it dried and that was a total fail, it was pretty much dried by the time i covered the bumper, so now the edges look bad. i'm gonna leave it on for a while because it does look a lot better than stock in my opinion and also doesn't look bad farther than 5 or so feet away but i'll have to redo it sometime. i did retouch up the edges after i took these pics (but didn't take any pics after the touch up) so its not as bad as it was, but there are still a few places that are in need of fixing






then my shift **** adaptor came today and i decided i would work on that since its supposed to be a 10-15 minute install. yeah, not for me. got the stock one off and put the adaptor on and put it on too far and it got stuck and took about 10 minutes of me yanking on it to get it off (lol) put it on again and wasn't doing anything. found some directions online, put it on again, set the screws and it moved a little, could get it in and out of the gears but when i put it back in park it didn't lock in so the key didn't come out. had to take off the adaptor so i could get my key out. so i just gave up for the day, it was making me too mad.

so just for all of you having a bad day just remember, you could be as incompetent as me

 

That sucks! Taping it all off is the hardest part. I did it to mine a while back but removed it.

.....My $.02.... Take it off and redo in a nice shaded area with a few cold ones and some tunes when you have the time. Don't settle now or you wont want to do it again!

 

Bummer!

 

Been there done that with other stuff; I know the feeling.

 

That sucks!

 

imo its the tape you are using..you need to get a good quality auto tape 1/4 is what I used when I did mind...so you can bend it around the corners easier then the 1'' blue painters tape...

 

yeah i'll probly end up redoing it so i'll be happy with it, i did just snap a pic of it after the touch up and its and improvement from the previous pics, just one small noticeable spot on the top left whereas before the whole edges were jacked, sorry for the crappy camera phone pics

after touch up:

 

yeah this would have been a good idea, just too lazy to go get some and figured i'd use what i had cus i wanted to get it done lol

 

don't feel bad because my first attempt with the dip gave me the same results as you...but the 2dnd time around I got the right tape and it made it a lot easier...plus I found it very hard to shape if you will around the curves on the back of the bumper with the 1'' tape

 

yeah hopefully the next attempt will get it right, definitely going to get the better tape. hard is right, when it came to the curves i was sitting there ripping off 2" sections of tape at a time to get it around the curves, i did find some pin striping tape i had laying around that i ended up replacing the corners with but didn't matter too much since the dip stuck to it anyway haha

 

use some wax and grease remover before you apply any tape ..wipe it down really well and both the tape and dip will stick a lot better as well

 

Here is what worked very good for me:

Tape off the exact edge with electrical tape in one continuous strip bent to the contour that you want. The tape is easy to remove and creates a razor sharp line. Leave a tab at the end so it is easy to grasp and pull off. When you do remove it, make sure to pull it off in one continuous motion while still wet.



Here is the second helpful hint. DO NOT put the newspaper up against the electrical tape. Leave an inch or two of gap before the newspaper masking. Seems counterintuitive, since this will make another plasti-dip area on the other side of the electrical tape.



But here is the magic... If you mask right to your tape line, you run the risk of making a mess when you pull off all that paper as the same time as the tape. What you do is leave the paper in place. When you are happy with your coats, you pull off the electrical tape in one motion... then walk away. Have a beer.



Yes there will be your dip, the clean tape line, and then another dip area between the previous tape line and the newspaper. But you let it all fully dry. Then the newspaper comes off. Then you rub off the extra dip that was past your tape line - it will all come off easy. That way you have your clean unmolested dip line where the edge of the electrical tape was - never touched by errant newspaper removal or other stuff.



Voila.

 

Much better! haha The before was a little rough. Nice touch up.


Nice write up and clean lines!

 

Don't feel bad, I tried taping mine off and it was a complete fail so I said screw it... Ill try again after I get some better tape. (blue painters tape didn't work so well) For me it wasn't that it didn't stick more or less I couldn't get a straight line across the top & corners were just a hassle

 

Yeah I failed too bc I used painters top... I realized after best to use a fine line automotive tape and as said above do not put the newspaper directly on the diffuser line!

 

wow thats a good idea, thanks for that, when i do the whole thing again i'll probly try that way
haha thanks, yeah the first run was a bit couldn't leave it like that, i'm pretty happy with the touch up, going to get that one spot fixed first before doing it all over again
screw it was my attitude as well haha, and yeah getting a straight line was also rather difficult especially if you're a perfectionist lol

 

Yep, agree with this.

 

Sorry you had so many problems yesterday - working on the car can be frustrating at times. Definitely re-do the rear fascia - you sure want the back of the car looking nice since that's what people see most of the time.