Swim Platform Help

I have pulled off the rubber pad on the ski platform on the Mobius. After I finished pulling it off, I wish that I had left it alone!!! The rubber pad came off fairly easy, but there is this clear plastic layer underneath that is bonded to the swim platform by some type of unidentifiable adhesive that was created by lucifer himself. I have scraped, picked, cussed and I still have a long way to go! Do you guys know of anything that will help get this clear plastic and god awful adhesive off? I have tried...Goof Off, Diff, gasoline, alcohol (easy guys, the non drinkable kind) and I can not get it off. HELP!!!

I had this same problem when I did the Gator grip on my outback. I bought some adhesive remover from West Marine and it still was a lot of work. It took a lot of patience but it was worth it in the end though. I highly recommend the Gator Grip.

I am going to tackle that problem before summer gets here to. My black pads turn your feet black as tar and tracks all in the boat. Got any pictures with the Gator grip pads??
And will they stain your feet?

Sorry to high jack your thread. ;)
________
volcano vaporizer classic

MEK

Can you even get MEK for the average guy? That stuff is nasty...

How about a belt sander?

Try a heat gun (aka hair dryer). Get it good and warm, then try scraping.
I know it works to get decals and other glues off.

Good Luck

Heat gun is the best way to go and be careful what adhesive removers you use. I tried some and it started to remove some of the paint.

I replaced my padding with traxx from airjunky.com and i think it looked great.

Doug

Thanks guys, I appreciate all of the ideas! I think I will try using the wife's "heat gun". I will update you all with what happens!

Here in Indiana you can get MEK at any hardware store [Ace,Lowes]I put Traxx padd on mine from AirJunky also.Looks great and no staining.MEK is nasty but works great.
John

In a couple more weeks I will take the shrink wrap off and then I can take a picture of the gator grip on my swim platform. I was looking for a graphic of the 'roo so I could get it waterjet cut into the gator grip but never found one. After seeing Ed's tatoo, I think I should have just had his artist draw it.

Andy

I am in the same boat right now as Jesse. I just pulled the pad off in one big sheet. Super Easy. The stuff beneath it, been working on it for 3 hours now and have about 10% of it off. Any help out there at all? I wish I had never bought the seadek at this point.

Power sander? I've read in a thread here that gasoline works.

Save yourselves a whole lot of problems use laquer thinner, apply it with a brush, wait 5 min and it should come right off with a scraper without even damaging the color coat on the edge of the platform. We remove adhesives all day long in my shop.

I started with laquer thinner. pouring it on. working just a little bit - better than anything else but still horrible. I didn't apply with brush. I will try again. When it is wet with the laquer thinner the top layer of glue will come off, but mostly just the top layer still leaving a little layer of "tape" underneath it. When you say "brush" do you mean a paint brush or a scrubbing brush?

This sucks. I cannot state what a mess this is. I wonder if I really need the glue off before I put the pad down???

At this point, I wonder how much a new swim platform costs. IF the lacquer waits 5 minutes, it is straight up dried/evaporated. I cannot figure out a single thing to get this off. I may just end up putting the Seadek over the top of it.

What I can't figure out is why mine is apparently so hard to get off adn everyone else was able to get theirs off. Again, the old pad just peeled right off in 2 minutes. It is the film/tape/glue underneath it that straight from the bowels of hell that is driving me crazy.

Volfo I think the first thing you need to do is sit back have a brewsky and relax, leave it for tommorrow.
A new swim platform is almost $1800.00 I know I called for one. I agree that the thinner evaporates and thats ok because it still weakens the glue, just brush enough on with a paint brush and be sure to use laquer thinner and not paint thinner. BTW i've looked at some seadek pics of members here and i can honestly say by the looks of it, it's gonna be one of best moves you've made.

I am giving up for tonight. four and one-half hours tonight and I would say I have less than 15% of the platform clean. I was using lacquer thinner, and I also tried a little gasoline, goo off, windex, a hair dryer, and various combinations of the above.

I am going to let it sit in the hot Tennessee sun tomorrow and see if that makes any difference. I was trying on my workbench tonight. This should not be that hard.

It appears that all any of the above chemicals I have tried do is remove a layer of glue that sits on top of a layer of some sort of film that seems a lot like tape, and which then has glue underneath it.

I am open for suggestions as I will be back at it tomorrow night probably. We are trying to head to the lake Saturday . . .

heating up in the sun and the goof off/goo gone stuff worked for me

I also had my two daughters working to peel the crap off while I watched, drinking a beer :) Good luck getting it done before you head out.

yeah, what Ed says

but . . .

if the gas doesn't work after 5 min, skip the soapy water part, light that thing on fire, make some smores and have a beer while you order up a new platform

I will try again after work tonight. Thanks for the tips. I think the problem is that I was able to pull off the old factory pad so easily, and when I did it, it kind of "delaminated" in that I think I was supposed to get the film with it and I did not. So now I have the film on top. I also have a borrowed heat gun lined up for tonight.

Ed, did you have just excess glue residue that you were able to get off with gas or did you also have the film stuff left on your deck? I keep thinking that layer should have peeled off with the pad, but it didn't. I guess I should have gone slow and used a heat gun. Truth be told, the boat is an 01 and the pad was peeling up at the edges.

how about a serious tip from me?

get one of those wallpaper scoring tools to put holes in the film so the gas or other thinner will get below to the glue.

I'm not sure if there would be a problem, but something about using a heat gun and gas together makes me nervous.

here is what I'm talking about. Looks like they have them at Lowe's

http://www.lowes.com/pd_64100-1748-2...Scoring%20Tool

Ed, sounds like you have been through this rodeo before. I will give it a try. I used just a little gas last night, being careful not to let any spill, but I will try again with more. I think the other suggestion about scraping a hole or two in it in some place to hopefully let some gas get under it also can't hurt so if the gas doesn't work immediately I will try that.

I finally ended up winning the battle with a razor blade, heat gun (wife's hair dryer) and a TON of patience. After the plastic was off, getting the glue off was not that bad. I took mine out in the driveway in the evening, sprayed it with gasoline and then carefully scraped with a dull gasket scraper. It all came off fairly easy. The hard part that I had was the plastic bottom from the original pad. The rubber seperated from it and made it impossible to get off. After getting the glue off, i wiped it down with a bottle of alcohol and put on the new pad.

Everyone that pulls up the stock pad has the hassles of pulling the pad and glue to deal with. All of us that have installed Seadek have experienced it. At least you have knowledge from those that have done it. I was the first to install one and had no assist so i had to experiment until i found success! Acetone will remove the glue easily without hurting anything. Luckily mine pulled off a lot easier than the glue did! :p

Jesse, same thing happened to me. The glue is a little bit of a pain to get off once the plastic is off but is nothing at all compared. I can get that off easy. It's the plastic film on top of the glue, which stayed on the platform when the rubber pad came off, that I can't conquer.

I think Wolfe's suggestion is a good one to get gas down below the film. And I share his concern about heat gun and gas! I am going to try with heat gun quickly first and if that doesn't work, move to plan b with the heat gun put away.

I like the seadek, but I honestly think I'd prefer to put another monster tower on my boat, winterize it, and install a cargo bimini than replace the pad! I guess I just have to find the right combination!

Okay, here is what worked for me. Others had other experiences, but this is waht worked for me.

Heat gun. I'll say it again. Heat gun. Not a hair dryer, but a heat gun. A wagner Heat Gun HT 1000 to be exact. With that, set at 1,000 degrees setting, the stuff came right up with apainters' spackle/drywall knife.

Went back over with a little paint thinner to get most of the stick off. Still had some left, moved to denatured alcohol and it came up pretty good. I actually used a little fiberglass cleaner with an electric buffer to get it good and clean.

Then I put the pad perfectly in place and put a bunchc of heavy stuff on one-half of it. Bent the other half up in the air, made sure it would come down in place, then lifted up again, sliced the sticky backing down the middle with a razor knife, and then slowly let it down from the center out to the end. smoothed it down real good, and started on the other side. Simple as pie.

Had I started with the heat gun, it was probably a 20 minute job to get it close to clean. I messed around another hour getting it perfect but it was good enough in another 20 minutes.

And it looks very nice. Very glad I did it. Just upset I started and got so frustrated when I didn't have the proper tool for the job.

For anyone else tackling glue on the fiberglass, try acetone...... I've recarpeted two 21 foot bass boats that I had bought.. Took me less than 6 hours*(per boat) to get the glue up on each....

Soaked the glue with acetone and used a plastic scraper, then use a rag soaked with acetone to clean up the residual... Wear gloves though, it will irritate your hands after awhile...

here is the latest one finished..
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...s/CIMG3979.jpg