I recently removed the lower large silver panels on my Bongo to be replace with new ones, they were faded and streaky and generally dated the van.
I did some reading and got myself a toffee or caramel wheel and started with that. After the first panel I realised it wasn't going to be a quick job. These wheels do wear and should be considered as a consumable, while they are quite good at removing the decal and most of the adhesive they do make quite a mess. They are similar to a pencil rubber, only harder and as such when using them on large areas of decal like the lower silver panels they ware pretty quickly leaving a lot of rubber dust behind. I purchased one and needed two to complete the job.
I ended up using a combination of toffee wheel on some bits and the hot air method on the rest. The hot air method needs some practice as the you need to get the decal warm enough for the adhesive to soften so you can peel the vinyl off but not too hot that the vinyl stretches and breaks off into small pieces. Once you've peeled the vinyl off your're left with the adhesive which has to be dissolved/softened and scraped off.
After trying various solvents I found this Alkaline based degreasant, Marine Clean, to work the best
http://www.frost.co.uk/cleaner-degrease ... clean.html, spray this stuff on and the adhesive turns to goo then you can scrape if off with a plastic sharpe edged scraper. Don't be tempted to use anything other than softer plastic edge, metal items will scratch the paint and lacer.
It was worth the effort in the end as the new panels look much fresher.
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