A little tip for you guys that are even greener than me... When you buy a truck, at least factor in what it's going to take to get the letters and decals off that beast so you can put it on the road. Our buddies at the DOT require that, at the very least, you get the name and other identifying stuff off the truck.

Yup, my truck had 387 letters on it and that's not including the ones that were so big they were more like decals than letters. It took about 2 1/2 days to reach letter-free and I think I'm going to buff out the truck to try and make it look right. Make no mistake, it was a long 2 1/2 days and I feel like a giant weight has been lifted from my shoulders now that it's done. Next time I'll gladly pay a premium for a clean truck.

 

We use a heat gun at work to pull off our decals and numbers, takes about 20 minutes to do. The biggest problem after that is they seem to imprint themselves into the paint so we do a wax job to cover it up some. They don't stick out like a sore thumb after that.

 

I was using a heat gun!!! There are letters and then there are LETTERS.

I just hit the letter outlines with some paint thinner to get rid of the residue. Now it's off to the truck wash and then I'm going to try some light duty rubbing compound to see if I can make the outlines disappear.

 

Musta been some of that real good glue on them then.

We have used mineral spirits to finish cleaning whatever glue residue is still on it but never paint thinner.

 

Eraser wheel ($12 at NAPA) and a drill. It helps to remove the letters in the sunshine or when it is warm. If this isn’t practical, then a heat gun or blow dryer will help. After you get all the letters off, take a cloth saturated with WD-40 and rub off any remaining adhesive. This really isn’t a big job if you know what you are doing. NEVER EVER USE PAINT THINNNER ON YOUR PAINT... DUH.

 

I'll check out the eraser wheel. That sounds like a good tip. You're wrong about the paint thinner though. The guy that suggested it was a former body shop guy. I didn't have any at home and tried denatured alcohol first but that didn't quite do it. I could have taken one step up in strength and bought some mineral spirits but went with the paint thinner and I sure can't detect any damage to the paint. Would I use paint thinner to remove something from my 2 year old car? Nope. If I had a problem I'd take it to a body shop where they would force me to wait in the waiting room while they used paint thinner.

Maybe the devil was in the details on this job. The box on the truck has a gel-coat paint job. (according to the body shop guy) Too much heat from the heat gun and the paint would bubble. The first 1/2 day I put into it was when it was 30 degrees out and it didn't go well at all. The paint tolerated the heat gun much better with temps around 70 and working on the sunny side of the truck.

Edit: It probably made a difference too that the truck had been repainted. The previous owner bought it new and had it painted a different color before having signage applied.