How To: Solving a sticky situation

First I would like to thank all the 348 & 355 guys that posted with solutions for sticky and/or gummy interior buttons and dials. The Easy Off idea works like a charm!

Having said that, most of the ideas I read work in one way or another, but I didn't find any specific instructions for the sticky A/C vents on my 360 Spider or the sticky climate control dials and gooey handles on the doors.

In an effort to help the community a bit, I am posting how I took care of my specific stickiness issues on the 360, along with some photos. I'm going to post this in a few messages since I have quite a few photos to share, specifically of the AC vents and how they are mounted in the dash, since when I searched the forum I did not find anything related.

To start off, here's what you'll need:

I used three different goo removers, pictured below. The Easy Off is the most aggressive, the Goo Gone is the mildest and the Oops falls in between. All of these were sourced at Home Depot.

You'll need black paint. I used Ultra Flat because I like the rubberized look you get with it, but you could use anything...even colors, if you are into that sort of thing. Note that the flat black will cover mistakes better if you have no patience (like me) or have no artistic gift (again, like me). For this reason, the 12 minute drying time of the paint pictured below appealed to me.

You'll also need:
Painters tape
A green scrub pad
A toothbrush
Plenty of cloth rags (I used diapers)
A thin bladed flat head screwdriver
A small eyeglass type screwdriver
Goggles
Gloves
Lots (I mean LOTS) of Q-tips

Tomorrow I'll get into how to use all these goodies. For now, here's the liquids:
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Originally, I started by getting the sticky goo off the recirc and "off" buttons on the A/C. These were the ones that bothered me the most because I used them on a daily basis, but I was worried I'd damage the white lettering. Because of this concern, I used the mildest of the three solvents (the Goo Gone) with Qtips and without disassembling anything.

It was slow going, but it worked well. After about 1/2 an hour and twenty or so Qtips, the buttons were better than new and the white print was intact. The success with this small project gave me enough confidence to tackle the dials and rotary knobs.

I tried the Goo Gone with these but the gunk was too thick and the Qtips too small to make headway, so at this point I switched to the "Oops" which seems to be petroleum based and more volatile than the citrus based Goo Gone.

Basically it was easy, apply the Oops to a cloth diaper, rub the dials and knobs with the diaper, once the section of the diaper is black, switch to a clean section and repeat.

The amount of black crud that comes off of these dials is amazing, but don't get too aggressive: rubbing with cloth instead of scrubbing with a rough material allows you to de-stickify these parts without requiring disassembly. As I was to learn later, using anything rougher than a cloth would leave fine scratches that would require painting, so BE EXTRA GENTLE on these bits to prevent the need for disassembly. Since these parts are surrounded by aluminum, any cleanup is relatively easy and no masking off the surrounding areas was needed. Once the majority of the gunk had come off, I cleaned off the details with Qtips soaked in Oops. Total time for the knobs was about 45 minutes.

At this point I was on a roll and felt I could tackle the door handles. I tried disassembling the black bits from the doors, but couldn't figure out the process and didn't want to be stuck with a non-functioning door operator, so I decided to mask off all the leather around the black parts and do the de-sticking the lazy (and perhaps safer) way.

I started with the Oops and a diaper...same way I had done the knobs, but quickly realized that the bigger the parts the more black gunk they had on them. The Oops was simply not up to the job and it was taking forever. Time to bring on the big guns.

Since everything was masked off, I decided to spray the parts with Easy Off and wipe it off with the diaper. Lo and behold, the Easy Off would take much more gunk in one swipe than the Oops did. It took about three or four times of 1) Spray, 2) Rub, 3) Wipe off to get the gooey stuff off but it worked.

At this point it is important to note that we are still using CLOTH to wipe off the Easy Off, anything rougher than this and the aluminum bits will scratch and the plastic will turn whitish, both of which will require painting. Not something you want to do unless you've disassembled the parts!

After the door handles and operators were cleaned to my liking (Do not overdo it or you will have to paint! Go little by little), I rubbed everything down with clean water to remove any Easy Off residue. Then I took off all the painter's tape and rubbed everything down with clean water again just to make sure all the Easy Off was gone.

NOTE that the "lock" text on the locking button will wipe off with the Easy Off, so if you want to keep it, you have to mask off that button. Mine was too sticky so I cleaned it off all the way.

Here's pictures of the results. The picture of the A/C controls show everything cleaned off except the left hand knob, which hasn't been done yet. The pictures don't quite show the visual difference, but the tactile feel between the sticky, nasty knob and the smooth clean ones is noticeable. In the picture of the door handle, notice that the "lock" text is gone.
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At this point, I'm happy my hands don't get sticky every time I close the door or operate the A/C, but I notice the ashtray is scratched and sticky as well. The door handles would have come out even better if I had disassembled them but I was afraid to, but the ashtray should be simple enough to remove, right?

It is extremely easy to take the ashtray out: Take out the ash/coin box by pulling it out and there is a phillips head screw underneath. Remove the crew, pull up, disconnect the wires and disassemble the ashtray. Easy and self explanatory.

Once it is out, it is just a matter of cleaning and painting. This has been covered in other threads, so I won't go into it too much just a word of caution: The cloth diaper idea didn't work so well here, so I took a green scrub pad to it along with a lot of spray easy off. This left me with an ashtray lid that was an uneven shade of gray/black and white. So much for just cleaning...painting is now a necessity.

The paint took well to the aluminum ashtray lid, but it is important to do two or three light spray coats and not one thick coat. A thick coat will just run or crack, so be careful. Luckily the Ultra Flat paint allows for inexperienced painters such as myself, so it came out better, I think, than the original, with no stickiness. Here's a picture:
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That was it, I was tired of de-stickifying stuff and was going to leave well enough alone. But then I noticed black fingerprints on my (beige) steering wheel and around the A/C vents.

Turns out the sticky rings around the A/C vents, which I thought I could live with, were getting their sticky mess all over my hands when I turned them. I though about this for about a week and looked in the forums for instructions on how to disassemble them, but didn't find anything (this disassembly process is ultimately why I'm writing this "how to"). I really didn't want to break these plastic parts or damage the leather, but there was really no way to clean these in their place, especially with all the little indentations the rings have.

Finally, I decided to grab the bull by the horns and see if I could get one out. Here's how it happened:

I thought I would do the least damage with the widest, skinniest flat head screwdriver I could find.

Start with the vent in the middle position (not fully closed, not fully open) this gives you a better chance of proper reassembly and operation later.

Slide this blade in between the leather and the ring (underneath the ring) and twist VERY gently. Be very gentle, especially with the leather. It can get cut up by the blade of the screwdriver if you aren't gentle. You may want to use a credit card or a thin piece of cardboard to protect the leather. Slide it in between the leather and the blade.

One of two things will happen at this point: Either the ring (by itself) will pop out, or the entire vent assembly will pop out. One side will pop out and then you will have to pry in another one or two spots to get the whole thing out.

See the pictures below...Disassembly continues in my next post.
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If only the ring pops out, you should be able to clean and paint it and reinstall it with no problem as long as you took care of having the vent in the middle position so you can match the gears to the teeth on the ring properly. If the vent was not in the middle position, you may have to use a flashlight to get the gear on the vent to its middle position so you can reinstall the ring properly into the center of the teeth on the ring. I may not be explaining this clearly enough, but that is why I am posting pictures of the mechanism. With these photos, you should be able to figure it out.

The other thing that may happen is that the whole vent will pop out. If this happens, you can take the whole thing out and pop out the ring by using a flat head screwdriver between the ring and the flange on the vent and twisting gently.

The pictures below show the vent without the ring attached and the vent with the ring in the position it needs to go in in order for it to operate properly.

If you have the entire vent out and the gears aren't meshing properly, you have the option of loosening the small phillips head screw, pulling up on the top gear and repositioning it to the correct angle. Roughly, for the vent to work properly, the center teeth on the ring should mesh with the center teeth on the middle gear which then align with the center teeth on the bottom gear.
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As an aside...and just to be extra clear, if you've got just the ring out, but want to remove the entire vent for some reason (maybe you want to clean it or you want to fix the alignment of the gears), here is a picture of the tabs that hold the vent in place.

These tabs snap into the metal ring inside the dash (you can see this ring in the picture of the dash without the vents) and they need to be squeezed away from the ring in order for the vent to come out. In order to do this you can do one of two things:

If you have one of the vents out and can reach in that empty hole with your hands (in the three center vents only), you simply push the tab away from the ring (in towards the plastic barrel) to unlatch, or,

If you cannot reach in, slide a skinny, flat, thin tool such as a screwdriver into the slot directly over the tab from the outside of the vent, push and twist to undo the tab while simultaneously pulling the vent out on that particular side. Remember this stuff is all plastic so be very GENTLE yet firm. Here's some pictures that I hope will visually explain where the tabs are.
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OK, so you have everything out now and are ready to do cleanup duty.

Since everything is out, there is no fear of "overcleaning" because you can easily paint the rings.

So, Easy Off will do the job easiest. Only trick here is to make sure the rings are clear of ALL of the gooey mess or the paint won't take well. The hardest part is to clean out the little indentations (was there 117 or 127 of them?) of goo. For this, I used a tiny eyeglass screwdriver on each indent and a plastic credit card on the edges and inside of the ring. A toothbrush and a green scrubby pad were used as well throughout this step. Choose your tools wisely young Padawan. But make sure it is thoroughly clean and dry before attempting to do any kind of painting.

Also, goggles and gloves are a must. Especially when using a toothbrush which tends to spray everything with a fine, black, easy off chemically laden mess. Oh, and if you don't want your wife upset with you, don't use the kitchen sink for this cleanup.

Once everything is very clean and dry, you are ready to spray. As I mentioned before, I used Krylon 12 minute drying, Ultra Flat Black paint. I think the ultra flat looks great, but you may like a regular flat or even glossy finish. I'm not a good painter so I prefer the flat blacks which cover mistakes better, but if you like bling go for the glossy red to match you car's exterior (just joking-please don't).

The only word of advice here is: Have patience, use thin thin thin coats, and let them dry thoroughly. I got a little impatient and overdid the thickness of the coat and ended up having to strip three of the rings again to repaint them when the paint got little hairline cracks in it. Patience and thin coats are key here.


Here's a picture of the painted rings
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At this point everything's dried nicely and the paint is uniform. It is just a matter of putting everything back together again.

If you took out the entire vent, make sure the gears all line up correctly and the vents operate to fully open and fully closed. May as well clean out the inside of the vents, which may be a little dusty, and then just snap everything back into place. They only go in one way, so I don't think this can be screwed up, just make sure the barrel of the vent is aligned with the opening of the air diffuser inside the dash and push in. This should go in easily, no need to manhandle the thing.

If you just took out the rings, try to get the teeth aligned properly and snap it in. It worked for me, it should work for you without too much fuss.

Once everything is back together, enjoy goo free driving. Everything feels so much cleaner now, doesn't it?