Emblem question

[SkeeterJD]

It seemed as though the clay was the best option. It did a pretty good job at getting in the little crevises and getting all of the junk out. Though I did use just about everything at my disposal, Q-Tips, toothbrush, Meguiars Triple Detail Brush, and something something that my wife uses for her makeup (I hope she never finds out about that....I'll just tell her the dog ate it.)

Here is a better up close picture of what I was dealing with. It was just a guess if those were calcium deposits or not. I am pretty sure that it was not wax because it was a real bugger getting rid of it. That small middle triangle was a real treat to work on too, talk about a confined area.


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Here is the finished product. It turned out pretty well. There is still some areas way back in the corners, but I am pretty happy with the results.





I also wanted to thank (I apologize if I get this wrong) Joe from Superior shine for directing me to the Brinkmann Dual Xenon light for detecting swirls. Its nice to be able to check your work right there without pulling the car out in some natural light....thanks!

Thanks to everyone else who helped me too. For those that are going to attempt this same ordeal, all I have to say is take your time. I screwed up on the bottom of the left flag and rubbed a little too hard with a Q-tip and produced a pretty good scratch. I got most of it out but it was hard. Time and patience is definitely a virtue when detailing cars.

Best of Luck!

Scott

[rusty bumper]

I guess I'm too late to offer any advice, but I did have to replace a Dodge pentastar that fell off one time. The solution was to buy double sided tape at the local PBE store and trim it to fit.

Originally posted by Accumulator
This always takes forever (literally hours on some cars) and the results are seldom truly perfect. That's one reason I like to debadge my vehicles

How did you go about this on late model cars?

[Don]

Originally posted by Rusty Bumper

How did you go about this on late model cars?

Easy, take some dental floss or some fishing line and put it under a corner of the emblem then gently pull back with a sawing motion and the line will cut right through the tape & foam adhesive. You will probably need to use a bit of goo gone or WD-40 and some cleaner wax to get rid of the adhesive residue.

[Accumulator]

SkeeterJD - Nice job

Rusty Bumper- As Don said, a lot of the emblems are just glued on. I try to get them off while the vehicle is new so there's less "ghosting" and thus less need for aggressive polishing. No problems at all on the Audis, but I can't pull 'em off the Caprice as the ghosting would be too bad after 113K hard miles

On the MPV they were pinned, but when the lady rear-ended me I had the holes welded shut on the replacement hatch panel. Normally I would've left them alone and kept the original paint, but it was the one bit of brightside I could find in the accident. I'm *really* glad they're gone, looked tacky and were a pain to polish around.

[rusty bumper]

I see.

So I take it that you don't try to reattach them then.

On some older models, I used to be able pry the emblems off, re-wax, and then press them back on again.

Too bad you can't do that anymore.

[Accumulator]

Originally posted by Rusty Bumper
So I take it that you don't try to reattach them then...

Nah, I've been into the debadged look ever since I stripped all the decals/etc. off my black '77 Trans Am. People used to ask me if I "saved money by not buying a real one"

I'm weird about it, I just don't like that stuff on my vehicles. And it *is* a lot easier to detail without any badges or decals- try polishing in between the letters on a tiny, lower-case "quattro" script!