This is one of the easier mods to do with a lot of payoff. I left my Lexus badge on in the center while deleting the 'Lexus' and 'LS400.' The car in the above picture has them all taken off and it looks great.
This tutorial will focus on the simple glued-on type of emblems. Most cars don't do this, but Lexus - striving for quality - decided that little knobs on their emblems that go into the body of the car was a good idea. Most other cars just use glue that's pretty easy to remove. This means that on an LS400 or any car that has these holes, you have to patch them. I will explain how to do so... The Driving for Broke way.
This tutorial applies to any car. It simply includes a couple extra steps for cars that have holes behind the emblems like Lexus. Let's get to it. I want to separate removing the emblem and patching the holes so if your car doesn't have them, you can skip that part.
Why?!
Removing the Emblem
All of the emblems I've seen are held on with this stretchy type of glue. You will be using a small flat screwdriver or something similar to gently and patiently pry the emblem back. It will probably help to have a razor aswell.
Start prying at the strongest parts of the logo and like I said, go slow. It's important.
Stick the screwdriver between the body of the car and the emblem. In the beginning, you want to stick it in and just rotate it. This will lift it off slightly. Move down an inch and do that once or twice going in both directions. Go to the other side and do the same thing. You will notice pretty quickly how this works.
The idea is to pry the emblem off without breaking it.
You need to keep going around but lift it a little more each time. If you see strands of glue holding on to both the car and logo, just cut it with your razor. You will get that off your car later. Eventually, you will be able to feel that you can just pull it off after you've gotten enough adhesive off.
Just turn the screwdriver. When you get in deeper, lift up gently.
For cars with holes behind the emblems, start prying from specifically those spots. This type of emblem has little plastic pieces on the back of it that go into the holes. The problem is that most of them are dry rotted by now and sometimes it's almost impossible not to break it. Nonetheless, lift the emblem with your screwdriver close to these plastic pieces, like I said, and they should be okay. They break if you turn the emblem the wrong way and they get caught by the hole. It's not actually a big deal. Kind of useless, like I said... You don't need the plastic pieces to install this.
Once they're off, you will see something like this;
Notice that the actual emblem is on top of my trunk but you can easily read "Lexus." That's the remaining adhesive and 20+ years of dirt. Getting the dirt part off is a little tricky. Let's start from the beginning.
First, you need to take the adhesive completely off. It will usually be rubbery and gray or yellowish. Get something like a razor blade and gently cut the glue completely off. You will be using the razor in a very similar fashion to how you shave your beard. There is a perfect spot - about 45 degrees - where the razor doesn't cut the clear coat but takes the glue off. The lower to the car, the harder to cut the clear coat, so adjust as necessary. You should get the feel for it quick.
Make sure you take your time so as to not scratch the paint. When you're done, there will still be some dirt left like in the following picture.
You can get that off with something gritty or a low-grit sandpaper which is what I did. Make sure you rub it just hard enough to get that old dirt off without damaging the clear coat.
Once you clean that area, you will be left with these holes you have to fill.
Filling the Holes
The proper way of filling the holes is a very complicated process consisting of grinding the edges down a little as well as sanding and eventually painting the whole area. The edge is to give the Bondo something to bond to. I chose a different way.
Ever heard of caulk? It's used to patch little holes in houses and is leak-proof. It's also somewhat rubbery, especially if you get the right kind. I used what I had on hand which wasn't the more-rubbery type but covers the holes fine.
First, you're just going to fill in the holes. Try to push a decent amount of it in there. Use your fingers. You want some in there so that it has something to hold on to.
Once it dries, push it in and remove as much of the caulk around the hole as possible. Your fingernails will be most accurate.
See how there is now an indentation - something to give strength to the top layer of caulk that you are going to add next. This time, use as little as possible and make it as flat as possible because the next step involves either sanding a rubbery material or very carefully cutting it off... Do your best to get it flat.
The above was my best for my first try but it's okay. There is very little I have to cut down. Again, when this is dry, I have to go around and very carefully cut some of the top layer off to make it flat.
My car also needs to be cleaned and painted, too, so it will be fine after that. That's also the reason I didn't want to post the finished product. The delete looks great but my trunk doesn't. At some point, the top was repainted with a similar white and it's also pretty dirty. It needs a good cleaning in general. I've been putting it off because I want to do a bunch of small things to it first (like paint the dang rims or maybe install hood pins? anyone remember that?).
I hope you guys learned something. Remember, get the more rubbery type. It should be easier to 'slice' the excess off of. If it's not completely perfect then you can re-do it or at the very least, rain won't constantly go in your trunk (LS400s are already bad with that - you guys know).
Keep the emblems in case you change your mind and happy cruising!
No comments:
Post a Comment