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Hey everybody, I'm new to the forums and new to riding. I just bought a 2006 Suzuki C50 about 3 weeks ago and I love it. Now that I have it of course I want to "make it my own". What I'm trying to do is remove the warning sticker (the one that says wear a helmet, don't drink and drive and that kind of stuff) that is in the center of the gas tank. I would also like to remove the boulevard emblems on the sides of the tank and I'm wondering if anyone can lend me their expertise. I'm worried that if I use any adhesive removal substance it will damage the clear coat as well which I don't want. I've already started scratching off the sticker which probably wasn't the best idea, so now rather than having a ugly orange and white warning sticker on the black paint, I have a partially scratched off ugly orange and white warning sticker.

I lifted the decals (not warning stickers) off my new bike using my fingernails, then removed the residual glue with goof-off. Worked fine, didn't seem to cause any harm... however...

This may not apply to your Suzuki, but... The Kawasaki sticker on the gas tank is under the clear coat. I think they clear coated over 'cause they didn't want gasoline to harm the stickers. I didn't really mind (they are the least objectionable stickers on the bike) but you might have the same problem on your Suzuki's tank.

Some warning stickers use *really* good glue... but if you want them off (any they aren't under the clear coat) you can take them off. Heck, worse comes to worse just sand the tank down and respray it.

I took my warning stickers off by rubbing them with my thumb for a little bit to warm up the glue, then peeled it clean off.

I went through this, and tried every suggestion out there. If you're hell bent on using a heat gun, use it gently. Hair dryer works fine though. Before you do, go to home depot in the paint solvent aisle and get this stuff called "Super Degooper" ( I sued Goo Gone, goof off and wd-40 like many suggest, and this stuff blows them away).

Douse with the Degooper, and then heat it up with the hair dryer for a while (2 beers worth). Gently pry up an end with your finger. Then take dental floss and use it as a saw behind the decal. Alternate the Degooper, finger, floss and dryer for a while. Took me about a 1/2 hour to get them off the tank.

Then, once you've got the sticker off the surface, you have glue/tape to get off still, right? Douse with the Degooper, leave it for a couple minutes, then take a cloth doused in Degooper, and rub in small circles. The goop dissolves, no marks, no scratches, and no calluses in the thumbs from using WD or some other crap.

Just peel it off and then use rubbing alcohol to remove the residue. Follow behind with water just to be safe but the rubbing alcohol will evaporate within seconds and wont harm the paint.

I use 91% rubbing alcohol but any kind should be fine. Theres no need for hair dryers, heat guns, or expensive residue removers. Just get a 99 cent bottle of rubbing alcohol, a long fingernail, and you're good to go. I can't say for sure but I'd bet that those expensive residue removers are just rubbing alcohol anyway.

This reminds me of something that happened between me and my girlfrend recently. For years I've been telling her to use a 2 dollar bottle of witch hazel to clean her face with. But no, she insisted on using the expensive Clinque brand face cleaner. One day while I was taking a dump and had nothing to read, I grabbed a bottle of her expensive Clinque face wash and started reading the bottle (sometimes I will resort to shampoo, toilet cleaner, or whatever else is close by if I don't have a magazine), and guess what? The main ingredient is witch hazel!! Looks like I won that one.

Anyway, get yourself some rubbing alcohol and fahgeddaboudit.

Just to give everyone an update, I successfully removed both the warning sticker and the two side emblems. Now I have a clean, no decal bike and it looks beautiful. I used a hair dryer to heat up the sticker. After I had removed all that I could this way, I used Goof Off ( I couldn't find Super Degooper anywhere locally) to remove residual adhesive. Looks great! For the side emblems I poured the Goof Off on the top of it so that it would seep down into the glue. I then used dental floss to cut through the glue and get the emblems off. What remained was about a quarter inch of adhesive that was extremely sticky and difficult to get off. Using <i>ALOT</i> of Goof Off (I used the whole bottle after doing all the emblems) and lots of rubbing and scraping, I slowly was able to get through the glue down to the paint which looked unaffected by the Goof Off. After giving the bike a thourough washdown I looked at the areas that I had worked on and Halelujah, (probably the wrong spelling, but you get the idea) it worked! Well, mostly. On the left side of the tank where I removed the emblem, the paint looked very lightly scratched and a little cloudy. I was a little worried about it, but on the bottle it did say this may happen. It recommended waxing and buffing the location to clear this up. Since then, I have waxed it twice and the scratches are gone and only almost invisible clouding remains. I'm sure after another one or two waxes nothing will remain. I'll get some pictures uploaded as soon as I have time so you can see how it turned out. Thank you all so much for your help and ideas! They were wonderful and now I am <i>MUCH</i> more happy with the bikes looks. I'll keep you updated on future projects I will do ( I'm thinking about adding a fiberglass skull to the rear fender that would hold the liscence plate in its mouth, but its kind of cheesy so I don't know if I'll do it). Thanks again!

Removing the warning decal on the gas tank is illegal in my state of Pennsylvania, if that decal is missing the bike will fail the yearly saftey inspection, I would suggest that you call ur dealer and ask him the laws in ur state before you remove it.

Goo-Gone works great. Uses a little elbow grease but it works wonders, no sratches , marks, residue. Do not bother with a heat gun and floss. That takes to much time. Removing stickers from the gas tank are illegal for dealerships to remove, Not sure about passing inspection, However it is not a big deal in Maryland.

MotoF150 wrote:Removing the warning decal on the gas tank is illegal in my state of Pennsylvania, if that decal is missing the bike will fail the yearly saftey inspection, I would suggest that you call ur dealer and ask him the laws in ur state before you remove it.

I bet your mattress still has the tag on it.

MotoF150 wrote:Removing the warning decal on the gas tank is illegal in my state of Pennsylvania, if that decal is missing the bike will fail the yearly saftey inspection, I would suggest that you call ur dealer and ask him the laws in ur state before you remove it.

I don't think it's required to pass a state inspection in PA. You can see the motorcycle inspection requirements for PA here.

I've heard dealers say that removing the warning sticker will void the warranty, but there's no way that will hold up unless they can prove your removing the sticker somehow contributed to the motorcycle's failure.