Ive been doing tinting on cars for a long while now, one of my first jobs was going into the detailing shop in the evening when the pollishers and vaccums arent running and tinting a car or two as a second job to pay for my expensive new car back when I was 18-23. Once you have done it a few times it gets pretty easy. Ive decided to make a "How To" for the forum so maybe other members might tackle tinting their own trucks. Blazers and S10 trucks are very easy ones to do the glass on as there is not much "heat shrinking" to do on these trucks. For todays tutorial we will be tinting my project truck OHSOFLY. I wish to darken the rear of the truck substantially to keep unwanted eyes from seeing my stereo in the back in broad daylight. The truck has factory tint but its not enough to block the rear floor out in the daylight. I would also like to take the edge off headlights in the mirrors, as well as add a cooler look in general - so I will be doing the front windows in light film too. Older blazers and S10 trucks can be done completely with 20 inch high tint rolls. Newer blazers require film from a 24 inch roll for the back window only. Here is the truck I am starting with. That back window was broken and replaced with one with no rear wiper in it.


WINDOW TINTING by OhSoFLY

The important things to remember when you are tinting your own windows and glass facts:
-Tinting of the front driver compartment windows is illegal in most areas. There is many reasons people will tell you its illegal - cause other people cant see you - cause the cops cant see how many people are in the car - blah blah blah... The real reason its illegal is because the windows are tempered glass and break into little cubes. When a peice of tint is on that glass it holds together in one big peice and can be a leathal projectile in an accident - so thats why its illegal.
-Your windshield is not tempered glass, it is double pane laminated safety glass. Every other window on every other vehicle is tempered.
-Tinting needs to be done inside, with the doors closed. Dust is your enemy and shows up in the final product as white specs between the glass and tint film. I like to wet my garage floor a little and sweep it up really good, the wet keeps dust from getting kicked up.
-dont use cheap blades for your knives and scrapers, use OLFA brand, I cant stress this enough.
-when you think the windows are clean and dust free enough, flush and squeegie them 2 more times.
-If you are out of spray by the time you finish a window, then you are using enough water. if you have alot leftover, then you need to rinse and squeegie more.
-When you make a cut, snap the blade off so its ready for the next cut. Never touch the same cutting edge to the glass twice, always snap a new one so you dont scratch the glass. When you use a flat scraper, dont flip it over once youve use it, and throw it our for the next window.
-when the film adhesive is exposed, you want to wet it and have it against the clean wet glass as soon as possible. Once its peeled its a magnet for airborne dust and we want as few white dots as possible in the final product.
-buy extra film when you purchase, get enough to do each window twice, then if you dont like some cuts you made, you can throw out that peice and cut a new one.
-take a good look at the inside of the window and frame and how it moves before cutting the peice to fit it on the outside. Some windows not only go up and down, they also move side to side, so you need to cut accordingly so that the tint will look good when the window is at all heights.
-take the power windows fuse out when you are done, that way the owner cant accidentally roll them down before the film cures
-Go buy a bondo card or tint card, dont use your bank/credit card as you WILL rip the film.
-Take off the door panels, dont tuck that rubber edge down that is on the top edge of the door panel unless you have to and it flips under easy.
-Dont ever touch the exposed adhesive side of the film with your bare skin. Only water then glass touches this side.
-Tint will make your interior last alot longer. Even if you dont like tinted windows, do your whole car with light stuff just to block the UV rays.
-Darker tints dont block any more UV than lighter tints, they just block more visibility.
-If you are one of those guys thats just gotta have the front doors blacked out, please use 17% on it instead or 7%(Limo) it will be just as dark for everyone looking in but you will have twice the visibility looking out. I dont even use 7% its so dark. I use 17% when people ask for "Limo" on the back windows.
-Factory tint is smoked glass. There is no such thing as factory installed film. The dealerships sub-out those 'factory' tint jobs to guys like me. Its only trucks that have factory window smoke. Domestic cars with tinted windows are film, however, cars that come with A/C have what they call a factory tint but its really just a slightly green layer on the glass, its not tinted to darken it at all. Trucks that come with hitches sometimes have clear back windows.
-It takes a skilled tinter about 1.5-2 hours to tint all the windows on your Blazer/S10 depending on if he pulls door panels or tucks the mouldings.
-No all that water running down into your door panels is not going to hurt anything.

Type of film to use:
You can use any tint film you desire. They sell color changing tint, and fader films, and mirror film, and rainbow. They will all work, but those fancy tints are junk quality. Cheap tint turns purple because its dyed and cause its junk. Shops use premium grade film which is also dyed, or metallic which has metal particles in it instead of dye. Go into a 'tint shop' and purchase their bulk film - it will be professional grade stuff, or even order a box online. Most tint shops will charge you $2.50 to $3.00 per foot for film off their rolls of the regular non-reflective tints, and about $3-$4 per foot for premium metallic films. The premium films are reflective, the regulars are non-reflective. The reflective films have a higher ability to block out UV, but the NR is really good stuff. I find the NR is much easier to heat shrink also, the premium films are very hard to put on cars rear windows due to the difficulty shrinking it. So you can buy from most tint shops for whatever they charge, or you can buy a box from the manufacturer for about $180.00 + shipping - the boxes have 100 feet in them - A 4door Blazer takes about 18 feet to do, a X-cab S10 takes about 14, a cavalier with a 2peice back window takes about 20. So you can do about 4 vehicles and make some mistakes with a whole box. The companies I know of that make films are "Llumar" - "Solargard" - "3M"... I have used all these tints, but my personal preference is the Solargard, it is what I buy and use on my jobs. The film feels thinner, the adhesive is much more forgiving when you need to move a peice thats been hardcarded down, and it just cuts with less pressure on the knife because its thinner. Solargard comes in NR 7 - 17 - 23 - 35 - 54, and rolls in 20" - 24" - 30" - 36" - 48". Llumar has many many many shades and colors to choose from and they also make commercial and residential films - if you want some tint for your house, get Llumar as you can get up to 100 inch tall rolls. You can also get a bronze film that almost matches the slightly bronze tint that older blazers and explorers and cherokees seem to come fatory with. With the 3M I installed film that someone else bought, dont like it, it worked, but its not something I would ever buy. Parts shop/canadian tire/autozone tints can be used, but they are junk really. The adhesive is garbage, and the tint is thick like cardboard, and you cant heat shrink it for curved glass. They are usually 10 feet for $20-$25... You might as well have gone to a tint shop and bought the good stuff huh?? I should also add that at some tint shops you can buy computer cut film peices. These are OK, but the rear window ones fit like crap cause every window shrinks differently, and I find the front window ones arent as wide, and the top edge isnt as perfect as the ones that I can cut myself. But they are usable and a good alternative for you to use if you think you will do a crappy job of cutting. Its also much faster to install when you only have to clean the insides.

What you need to tint your vehicle:
A spray bottle. OLFA knives, the L2 is the small one that I buy. Steel wool, or abbrasive sanding pads. Shampoo - it adds the slip to the water so the film moves around on the wet surface and doesnt have any detergents. You can use baby shampoo too. My stuff is special cause when I spray it I remember the hot girl I had wild sex with that I got the shampoo from. Flat razors for scraping dog snot and kid goo off the insides before you scrub. Papertowels, 2 rolls. Squeegies - The black on I use was a 40 inch floor squeegie that I cut into 5 inch angle cut chunks. A hardcard (white rectangle) or bondo card will work but a tint hardcard is just a little stiffer. A garage with no draft and good light. Patience, this is a slow and very clean process. No visitors and lookie-loos - they kick up dust while they wander around asking questions.


Fill your bottle with nice hot tap water and add in the shampoo. I use 3 globs as they come out of this little syrup jar, no more or the film slides too much, no less or it sticks and doesnt slide.


Lets get started. I always do the back window first, its the most work, then the job is all downhill once its done. I would remove the back window from the blazer to do the tint. Unless you can see the black edging 100% of the way around the edges when the window is on the truck, then you have to take it off. If I remember correctly you can do the back window of second gen blazers on the truck, but first gens come off. Then remove all the hardware and wiper motor assembly. Yes we are taking this window off cause the part where the hinges are goes over the clear part on the outside, so we have to take it off to cut the film to fit onto all the black edging. Take the window into your kitchen counter and put it down on a towel.


I had to remove some old purple tint from the window I got at the auto wreckers. If you try to take the film off by peeling it you will get a horrible mess and possible peel some defrosters off. There is a secret special way to get the old tint off, and here it is revealed to you. You put the old window down tint side up, and spray Ammonia cleaner allover it. I know this stuff smells absolutely nasty, but it works. Now lay a split garbage bag onto the wet ammonia and smooth it out so it covers all the old tint. The bag is going to keep the ammonia from evaporating while it penetrates the film and loosens the adhesive. I leave it overnight and I can just pick the edge with a fingernail and peel it off. And look, it takes 99% of the adhesive with the tint so you dont need to remove the adhesive later. This is the way to remove old tint.


I will be using SolarGard NR23% on all the back windows, and I will use lighter tint on the front doors. It should end up being a little darker than "limo" on the back windows with 23% over factory tint.


Wet the outside of the window, and roll on some film. The film has 2 sides, the film side, and the protector. The tint is the less refective side, or the bottom side when coming off the roll. Do a rough cut to shape and squeegie out all the water so the tint sticks and doesnt slide around. Now put a light under the glass as you make your edge cuts. You want to overhang the black edge about 1-2MM on the sides so that the tint edge is between the clear glass, and the defroster power strip. You can overhang onto the black edge as far as you like everywhere else on the window.



My back window ended up having to be heat shrunk in 4 spots. Thats not much, it will have hundreds of heat shrinks to do on any cars back window. You will see the tint lift into what we call "fingers". Move these around and space them out so that they are a single finger. If the tops have kind of a "Y" shape to them, then you need to split that finger with your hands and make 2 straight fingers out of it. When the fingers are heated up, they will need to be hardcarded out THAT way. From top of the finger - to edge of the tint. And the fingers MUST be shrunk to the top and bottom of the roll, or top and bottom of the window. So if you have a finger that points to a side, move the tint around and get that finger to move to the top or bottom of the window. Tint will not shrink from side to side. Its because when they make it they take a 97 foot peice and warm it and stretch it to 100 feet. That allows for about 3% shrinkage to fit onto curved glass. Premium films have about 2% which makes them even harder to fit to rear car windows.


When you touch the heat gun to them, they crinkle up like this. Once its crinkled you use slight pressure on your hardcard with papertowel on it, and quickly swipe the finger toward the outside edge of the window. Dont put too much heat onto a finger or you will burn the film, if you burn it, you will know because it wont sit flat against the window anymore and you are starting over with a new peice of film. The same second it crinkles up, swipe it down. This must be done quickly.


Once you have your tint cut how you want it, put it up somewhere so you can inspect the edges. I use my refridgerator in this photo since I was inside, but I usually just put the film peices onto the windshield of the vehicle Im working on. Check the edges for sharp edges that would snag, or knicks where the knife was lifted and put down again, clean these all up nice.


I cut the tint much closer to the holes where the hinges will bolt on. Looks perfect once the hinges cover the area.


Clean both sides of the window really well. One thing to remember is that you can NEVER use your scraper blades on a window with defroster bars on it. This window will be cleaned with abbrasive pads only, so extra elbow grease is required. Upon close inspection you will find NO specs or grit, that means you have scrubbed and squeegied enough. Also rub and scrub the crap out of the window mouldings and try and get as far into the track part as you can, and spray as much water as you can to flush these parts out. You should have to fill this bottle by the time you are done this back window or you arent using enough water.


You will see the defroster bars change from gold to silver when they are clean enough. The clean side is the left side in this photo. Clean the window really really well, I spray and flush them about 5 times after I have finished scrubbing. Now wet it and prepare the film that will be going on really soon.


Now its tricky to do, but pick at the edge of the tint with your knife, it takes a little getting used to but you can get the blade in between the film and the protective coating. Once you get the blade in there, turn it so the space is big enough that you can grab the clear part with your fingers and peel it back as you spray the adhesive. It needs to be wet 100%. Dont ever touch the adhesive side of the film with your skin. If a peice of dry adhesive touches dry glass, it sticks instantly and the film piece is ruined. When the tint is all wet, quickly slide your hands up under it and transfer it from the workbench to the glass ASAP. You want the adhesive in open air for as little time as you can.


Slide the tint around and line it up. This is why there is some shampoo in your water, so this slip happens. Once its in position, squeegie it out from the middle out to the sides, and from the top down. Once all the water is out, switch to your hardcard wrapped in a papertowel and use more force to get the water out. You dont need to get it all out, and dont push too hard or you can rip the film. You want all the air bubbles out, they are white when looking from the outside. Water bubbles look like bubbles, but they arent white. Big globs of water need to get pushed out, but if there is small wet looking spots, thats OK and just leave them, it will dry out in the sun. this photo is of the top squeegied, and the bottom as it looks when you place the film on the wet glass.


Now take the window outside to sure in the sunlight, or do it yourself with the heat gun, your choice.


I did not make any photos of the other 4 windows that dont roll up and down on the back of the truck, they are the easiest ones to do, you may even want to do these 4 first to get the practice before you do the back window. Just make sure you put a light inside the back when you are cutting the edges, and snap your blade off everytime you lift the knife when cutting, these are the 4 windows that scratches from pushing too hard or not snapping enough are going to show the most on. Also on all these windows I do the whole window with a scraper blade before scrubbing with the pad.

Now onto the roll up windows. These are kind of tricky too, but read well, and inspect all the things I point out and you will do just fine. On the front doors I will be installing NR35% film so that the cops leave me alone. At night it still can look pretty dark with the whole back of the truck tinted dark, so you may want to clock on the interior light if a cop is rolling up beside you. In my experience, chicks like to get down'n'dirty alot more in tinted vehicles.


Clean the outsides of the windows, and roll them down about this far. Now put your films on the outside with all the excess tint hanging off the bottom of the window and squeegie them so they stay put. Cut the TOP edge first. The sides next, and the bottom last. This is so if you mess up you can peel it up and shift the film up a centimeter and cut it again.


Move the windows up and down a little and grab the top edge of the glass and move it around, do you see how the window shifts a little, you need to keep that shifting in mind when you cut these films, so that it covers all the visible window in all its ranges of up and down. Pay mind to this, and even mark the edges of the outside of the glass with a felt pen so you can have a edge refrence when you have the window down.

Hold your blade at this angle to cut the top edge. Try and poke the blade through at once edge, and with your finger riding the edge right in front of your blade, cut across the top in one swipe. If you dont get it perfect, move it up and try again. This is the important edge, so you want it done as nice as you can get. Its the edge that all your passengers are going to see, so having it uniform all the way across is crucial.


Try to cut as far into the sides as you can. There is at least and inch of glass inside the doorframe that you cant see. Once you are satisfied, cut the bottom edge. I cut this one on the rubber moulding, so that the film will stick at least an inch BELOW the moulding on the inside. Then put your work on the windshield for now and get onto the cleaning of the insides. I remove the door panels because that bottom edge goes with it. I also take my knife and trim that rubber moulding that is in the way of the window on the bottom edge, you will see what i mean when you pull your panels off. When you are going to cut the bottom edge, you will have to put the window up all the way, so peel back the top edge of the film so it doesnt go up into the doorframe when you put the windows up, but so the center stays attached so the tint doesnt move.

Once all the glass is clean, roll the window down so you can see the top edge, and get ready to install your film. On roll ups you dont want to peel all the clear off. You want to put the film upside down on the windshield, and peel what is the top of the tint down about halfway only and wet it. Now stick that to the window insides, and line it up for the top edge and sides, and squeegieI it down. I like to never have more than 1MM at the top edge, .5MM is my target. Hardcard this top section of the tint, and maybe heatgun the very top edge. Now roll the window up and peel the plastic off the bottom, wet it and squeegie the bottom and hardcard. Put the door panels back on and admire your beautiful work.

This is what it looks like when its all done. Sorry I didnt get as many photos of the roll up procedure as I would have liked cause I never had a camera man and it was dark outside. Turned out very well as i would think, thats about 1500 vehicles tinted for me now... When you have put tint on clear glass (cant see it on the factory tinted glass) you will think it looks streaky outside in the sun, thats fine it will be gone when fully cured in a day or two. You can clean the glass as you would have before with glass cleaner after its been installed for about a week and had plenty of cure time.

 

I hope this guide helps you all, and if you have and questions feel free to PM me. I will update this thread next time I get a car to do and add in how to do really shifty front windows (like cavalier have), and an extremely double curved back window in both one peice (advanced) and two peice (not so advanced). A one peice back window on a newer Chrysler Intrepid was the biggest peice of tint I have ever wiggled into a backset with I may not add this stuff though as it doesnt really apply to any of the S-series trucks... who knows, we will see. I will try and find a second gen to do the front windows on, a guy at work has one he may volunteer for a free front window tinting just so I can get photos for you second gen guys. I will also keep my eyes peeled for a first and second gen rear slider (tricky) and pop-outs and show you how to do those properly so they look great when open too. I dont know anyone with a trailblazer but I also work with a lady with an Envoy that Ill ask to volunteer it.

Now that you have learned how to apply tint, all you guys who get vinyl stickers or racing stripes can use the same soapy water - squeegie - hardcard to install your stickers without bubbles and the soapy water will allow you to lift it up without wrecking it if you wish to adjust it while installing!! The ones that have a white backing will need to be heatgunned dry before peeling off the white application backing. You can also use your blade to slit the white backing along the top and bottom edges to make it fit curved windows better. I like to mark the white backing, and also measure and mark the glass with a sharpie pen so that I get them dead straight and center. Yes it will stick just the same when dried out as if you just slapped it on a clean dry surface.

 

Very nice! I need to get the front windows tinted on my Rainier at some point!

 

Great post! I've installed tint alot before but thanks for showing the tricks on the rear window. I was going to buy some precut tint but I might as well do this cause I feel confident enough to do it now

 

Great write up. Right now I'm starting to put 5% precut I bought from snaptint.com (Great tint website for precut D.I.Y.!!! very good quality)on all of my windows, on top of the stock tint. It's gonna look awesome when its done. Too bad I'm gonna have to remove the 20% I put on the front windows a year ago. I just don't want them that dark. lol