I'm not sure what to do to protect the paint as I'm not even planning on coming close to it. My game plan is to one clean the hell out of the window and seal and stick the seal in there put tons of soap and window cleaner all over it and have my wife on the inside of the truck and have her hold on to what will be the passenger side as I slide it across the seal from the driver side outside and get it all the way over into the passenger side a little bit and have her jump out and hold it up and in there and I'll put a stool out there for it to stand on. Then start working both the bottom side edges till I can get both the sides in then work the top in..