Thanks again.

Geoffrey I know you mentioned you wanted to wrap your door handles. Well, its a PIA. It's hard to make all those curves and get it 100%. So heres todays project.. As much of a PIA it was I think they came out nice. Now for the other side of the car.. My hands are killing me so its waiting till tomorrow..

And no, I didn't cut the hole for the key out. I'll use that for emergency only for now..

One thing I noticed already. Is that they get hot.. Real hot to the touch. I wonder how thats gonna play out with this stuff. Its supposed to stand up to 220 degrees..

 

Done. I couldn't wait.

Secret is to have two people. I made my 9 year old the heat gun and was able to use both hands to stretch and they came out perfect. I may go into business..

 

John, Im also in Abingdon and would like to see your car, maybe contract you to do the doors n stuff for me. They look awesome.
Ryan

 

I work at Petes Cycle in Bel Air. If your around stop by. Off Tuesday and Sunday. Or you can swing by my place. I'd be cool with helping you out.

 

love it, have you thought about doing your strpes on the hood and trunk? if you matched up the direction on the vinyl for the stripes, with the ones on the headlight rings that would look sweeeet. i have the 3m di-noc on my laptop and have noticed the rolled corners creasing like your shifter ring. i used the headgun and a stiff plastic wedge to press them out, this material seems thicher and more durable than standard vinyl. i cannot wait to see your center speedo/vents done. can you please put all your pictures in you gallery so we can get the big picture. i love watching your progress. and the more you do, the better you get and the overall look coordinates more and more. i have seen pictures of a tuner company do the black fender arches and front /side/back lower trim of the countryman and you cannot tell until the light hits them right.

 

I added some photos to my gallery.

I have considered doing the stripes but I don't think I would go through with it. I am probably going to do my side scuttles and Im definitely doing my sunroof trim rings. I will be done at that point. Nothing left.. maybe

 

All4, think I'll take you up on that 1. Next week is positively insane but after that should be quieter.

 

You did the handles without taking them off? They look fantastic!

 

I like it!

I did the center console posts in my '05 which came out nice, but I've done the mirror covers 3 times and can't get it to come out flat - they're real dished! I'm tired of wasting the Di-noc now, I'll move on to something else.

 

JB, I HEAR YOU. Its expensive and it doesn't always adhere well. Its taken me a while to get the hang of it and only 75% of my pieces are perfect and those would be the smallest pieces without many bends, or pieces I could completely roll it around the edges.

Geoffrey, Yup. Did them on the car. Pretty simple really.
I like the look but I get too **** about it peeling up around the edges(and it is in several places) and that will make me either redo a few of the handles or take it off completely and get the black Union Jack handles. Its not all the vinyls fault either. The handles are a tuff shape. The 4th turned out way better than the first, so maybe I do have some hope, but I hate half assed stuff..

One thing I have learned from 3M is that I should be doing this in a temp closer to the 70-80's than 100's.. Plus they told me it should stay in a stable temperature for about 48 hours following install. So maybe fall would be the time to do it for the parts I cant take off and leave off.. My headlight bezels are perfect. Did those indoors and let them sit for a few day, no problems..


Ryan, Anytime is cool. Just PM me when your ready to do something

 

random though, but you are aware that real CF is cheaper, correct? (its a little messier, but if your just doing mono-layer aesthetic covering, the real stuff is cheaper. Just get some resin and mix black paint into it and paint it onto your part like a base and wrap with real CF. Gives you that dry carbon look... but better than the di-noc for obvious reasons... because it is cf.

 

NEGATIVE!!! i did my crx sunroof years ago this way. it does look better than the di-noc but after a few months " and car washes" individual strands will start breaking loose and it will turn out a big headache. you cannot wax it and it will be a pain removing without messing up underneath. i eventually removed it and found sellers of real single layer carbon fiber sheets on ebay and used 3m double sided adhesive to apply. it was pretty easy because its a flat surface. BUT beware, after a few years now im finding that the resin used on carbon fiber doesnt hold up well to uv rays. im having to compound and wax every couple months now on the sunroof and the hood. they return to the original awesome look but it is getting old seeing the oxidation return so fast. im seeing other cars around with the same issues.

 

Door handles are a major PIA, but my R53 Gas cap was by far the most difficult thing to wrap. A lot of heat and patience!!! I have to redo my door handles as the vinyl shrunk a little at the edges. I used Oracle wrap material in matte black, also did stripes with it. The wrap materials are amazing, they stretch to almost 200% then go almost back to flat again.

 

I decided to order my CF wrap from Metrorestyling.com. I priced out tiptopsigns.com and they our way over priced compared to MetroRestyling. A buddy of mine recommended MetroRestyling as they're cheaper; he has purchased from them and shipping is faster since they are in Michigan (I am in MD). It is the same 3M DI-NOC Wrap that tiptop sells. I called tiptopsigns and they never picked up the phone, they're based out of Louisiana, the reason why I am telling you this is because they're only an hr behind MD, so there would be no reason why they shouldn't pick up the phone if I am calling at noon. Thought that was sketchy. Plus the person on the phone sounded like they were over seas, the voicemail message. Regardless tiptopsigns for 12" x 96" with shipping would have cost me $145.00. MetroRestying same spec with shipping, $45. Huge difference. Anyhow, I order on Thursday of this week and should get it Monday. Will post back when I have install and wrapped all the plastic silver rings for the interior.

 

OP how do you go about cutting off the excess bits around the interior trims? How hard is it not to scratch anything?

 

Maybe a stupid question. But are you taking the interior bits off before wrapping them? If you are is there a guide to show you how to remove them? Like the tach ring the door lock ring and things like that.

Thanks!

 

I will not be taking the rings off, why are you guys calling them bits, that's weird or different. I tried taking them off at one point and time with needle noise pliers, but I was nicking the plastic. I will be laying the CF wrap over and then heating to conformity, and then using a sharp OLFA knife and carefully cutting to get them where I like it.

 

How do you get it to look so good. I have a R56 S and I am doing all the rings silver and chrome rings inside my car and I tried doin it, but it doesn't look like yours. How long did you wait to let dry after heating it and stretching it? I seem to cut good in some area and then others not so much. Maybe I am just rushing my cuts. I can see how this job will be a tedious one. Did you remove the parts on your steering wheel and then wrap them? I can't seem to get all the bubbles out when I am trying to wrap the parts on the steering will. The concave edges are leaving air pockets.

If you took them off, how did you go about doing it?

 

looks great!

 

It takes a lot of heat and patience to wrap most of the parts. Plus you will need the 3M adhesive promoter..It makes the vinyl stick to the hard bends and corners. You will need to remove all the pieces if you want them to look their best. You need to wrap them completely. You will need to get them very hot to help the glue set and once you have the piece wrapped you need to keep them in a controlled temp for 48 hours. I do recommend this. I did my car last year in the heat of the beach on vacation. Some of the pieces(easy ones) stuck and didnt peel at all, some of the difficult corners did peel. Pieces I did later in my house (headlight bezels) I took a great amount of time to wrap them 100% all sides so they really stuck well. I let them sit a few days and they have been on the car for a year and they still look great!
It took me a entire week to do my car. With a lot of error before I got it right. My fingers hurt like crazy, but it was so worth it...

It has been one full year and every piece is still perfect.

Good luck.

 

Speed,

The DINOC has air release technology. Means it lays flat without bubbling.. Not sure if your less expensive vinyl has that.. May want to check. You can see that the DINOC works well..

 

I ordered a bunch of the 3M 1080 (supposed to be easier to work with than the Di-NOC), primarily for covering all the piano black surfaces but other bits as well. I did the steering wheel trim pieces since they're pretty easy and can be removed from the car. I may redo the bottom spoke again since I'm not totally happy with it, but overall I like how it looks.

 

So how did you remove the 3 spokes on the steering wheel? I could not get them off and when I did I honk the horn way too many times trying to remove the bottom spoke.

 

I had my bonnet scoop wrapped with the 3M stuff it looked real good for maybe 2 months but the Florida sun was just to much for it. It seemed to just shrink up and peel in the spots that it had to be stretched the most.

 

I popped off the airbag and it was pretty easy after that. I read a bunch of various threads on here, but most applied to older MINIs. A quick how-to:

1. Disconnect battery

2. There is a small hole behind the bottom spoke going into the wheel. Insert a flat head screwdriver with the blade perpendicular to the wheel. Push further into the wheel and you'll feel the mechanism release that holds the airbag on. Push the screwdriver in as you pull the airbag off. It takes very very little effort if you have it released properly, so if it doesn't come off, you probably don't have the release activated properly.

3. There should be enough cable to leave the airbag on top of the steering wheel, but you can also disconnect the wires and set aside if you can figure out how to get the wires to release (I couldn't).

4. The bottom spoke is just held on with friction fittings. You can wiggle it out with your fingers or gently coax it out with a screwdriver.

5. The side spokes each have a T20 screw holding them on (may only be there on the MFSW). After that screw is out, you can wiggle them out with your fingers. If you have the MFSW, be careful not to pull too hard since there are wires coming off the back. You can either disconnect the wires or pop just the top cover off.

The only tricky bit was the airbag. I fiddled with the airbag for a while until I reread the instructions and realized I needed to spin the screwdriver 90 degrees. After I figured that out, it was a piece of cake.