Another option for paint protection on track days

[chr2002ca]

Steve(Bad Penny) started a great thread about long-term paint protection on the 'other' website and it reminded me that I had an option about paint protection that I was going to post here. I used it at RTTC and thought I would at least share it here on Lateral-G and maybe somebody might find it useful. Not sure where this thread belongs(probably under the Paint section), so please free free to move it accordingly.

So this option is using the same type of clear film that others use for long-term protection, but it's more of a short-term and much less costly solution.

You can buy sheets of the VentureShield clear film on Ebay for fairly cheap. I bought enough to cover the areas behind my front and rear wheels and parts of the door and lower valance, all for about $60. Prices may vary depending upon the seller, number of bids, and number of sheets you're buying. Each sheet comes with an extra piece of clear plastic that is used to protect the film in transit. You can use those extra pieces of clear plastic to create templates of the pieces you want to cut out of the film. The fact that this is only going to be temporary really reduces the time needed to make the templates and apply the film because things don't have to be perfect since you're just going to remove it later anyway. That really makes the process A LOT easier. It took me about 60 minutes to create the templates and 15 minutes to clean the areas I wanted to apply the film to. Once you have the templates created, you can cut your pieces out of the clear film in about 10 to 15 minutes using a razor blade. The clear film actually goes on to the car very easily, much easier than I thought it would. You just use 2 solutions and a squeegie(I used a large bondo applicator which cost $2). The first solution is a combination of a few drops of Johnson's baby shampoo and water. The other solution is a combination of Isopropyl alcohol and water. Spray the soapy solution on the metal and on the film as you're pealing the film off of its backing material and then slap the film in place. You can move it around until you get it positioned where you want it, yet it sticks good enough so that it stays in place. Then peal back about half of the film off of the metal and spray the isopropyl solution underneath, put the film back in place, and then squeegie it out. Now do the same for the other half. You're done. Each piece goes on in like 3-5 minutes, no lie. Very easy, even for a goof like me. I was able to apply all my pieces in about 30 minutes, and you really can't even tell they are there other than the edges. It actually looked kinda professional which is a scary word to use in my garage. During the RTTC event, the pieces protected my paint nicely and never pealed back anywhere. After the event, I just pealed the pieces off and they peal off fairly easily if you just take your time and you're careful. It took me about 30 minutes to peal the pieces off and no paint pealed off with them. If I was going to run some more events this year, I would have just left the pieces on and gotten more value out of it. Since I now have the templates already made, the next time I do it will only take me about 45 minutes to cut and apply the pieces and 20 minutes to remove, and cost about $60. Again, it's temporary so that's why it's quick and cheap, but still very effective and damn near invisible.

So maybe that's an extra paint protection option that might be useful to someone.

[Stuart Adams]

Thanks for sharing. Very good idea.

[Sieg]

Here's 3M's distributor list: http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawe...yLazyLyyyyyy--

Basic product info: http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3...ield-Consumer/

[Steve1968LS2]

I've also seen clear shelf paper used.. cheap and easy temp idea.

Also, I've heard people like this stuff:

http://www.buyroadwrap.com/

Pretty cheap to use for a big track day or for a long cross country haul. Sort of a temp version of my film. It's thinner so it doesn't give great protection from big rocks, but it's great for "sand" and other smaller track debris.

My paint is in great shape four years after putting the 3M Venture film on the car, fill still looks great but has a sandblasted effect in some spots, of course without the film my paint would have been blasted instead. And still no yellowing or "issues".