Black side strip on Duetto

When we had the side of ours repaired, around the water heater, the strip was put back on by the body people. From my days of straightening buses for a living I can only assume it was fixed using black sikaflex type of glue. If it was just the end rather than taking the whole trim strip off and cleaning and re-glueing we used to put a black self tapping screw in and glue it. It would only be a matter of a couple of weeks before the drivers tore the rest of the trim off or even ripped a whole side panel off. . You can get sikaflex from the likes of screwfix. The hardest part is cleaning the old glue off. The cleaner it is the longer it will stick. Good luck.

I have removed and replaced this strip myself (though on the SWB version of a Mk5 Transit rather than the LWB) under almost exactly the same circumstances.

The strip ~should~ be held in place with a 3M (type) foam adhesive strip - if you buy a new one there should be one of these already in place on the back. These generally make the strip fairly difficult to remove, because what normally happens is that the foam centre tears, leaving the adhesive layer attached to both sides. The adhesive itself is then extremely difficult to remove.

The black strip will often bend during the process of removal. If so, stick it under a heat lamp for a few hours on a flat board and it will normally straighten out (I did not believe this initially, as mine was very kinked - but it does actually work).

I've used Sikaflex for a lot of things, but I would not use it for this particular application. Put it back on using a 3M (type) double sided adhesive foam strip - if necessary put masking tape markers on in advance, or tape a board underneath where it's supposed to go. The adhesive strip has instant "grab" so you need to be very precise in aligning it and pressing it on (which is probably why the body repair place got it wrong).

Thanks Dave & Mojo for the feedback, I'll have to get in touch with the guy who did our work and find out what he used to re-fit the strip, then see about fixing it, perhaps I won't have to remove it all.

Cheers for the help,
Paul & Caz