De-badging 101

[Wolf]

I'm sure there's been several posts and lots of other info on removing your emblems but here's my 2 cents:

1: Wash your truck

2. Go to the beach/ amusment park/ rock climbing/ mountain biking or whatever it is to have a fun day and park in the sun.

3. Upon returning to your 4Runner pull your audio installation prybar out of the glovebox. Get em here: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=95214

4. Quickly pry off the chromed emblems short side of the shape away from the body being careful not to leverage the letter against the paint since the opposite edge has a sharp electroplated chrome venear. Pry away short side because otherwise you'll bend the letter and won't be able to reuse them later if you want.

5. Remove any adhesive residue with 3M Adhesive Remover #08984 and a clean soft rag.

6. If you didn't get all the adhesive off when the letters came away you can soften the residue with this stuff and scrape carefully with the nylon prybar
inside your wet cloth.

6. On another clean part of the rag use a small amount of 3M Imperial hand glaze to remove any oxidation / old wax whatever to buff it gently to perfection.

3m products work the best because that is what you are removing (black 3M double sided foam adhesive) and what you would use to re-attach any emblems at a later date.

Hope this helps. I'm not sure how to efficiently put photos up so I'll do it in a series of posts till I learn how

 

[Wolf]

You could get creative if you can manage to not destroy the letters

 

[Wolf]

rear emblem has holes in body!!!

You could use black vinyl to hide these ugly registration holes. Or make your own emblem from stamped aluminum. Or use a Lexus badge or some other automotive/ surf/ HK whatever. If your really ambitious mask the holes and fill and paint with a touchup brush.

 

[Wolf]

Finally it will look clean like theres never been anything there- even if your truck is 4 years old like this one! And takes only about 15 minutes to remove them all.

Continue to paint them/ anodize them or replace with something else or better yet advertise the manufacturer best by making people curious about what kind of truck it actually is.... if it's imaginable that they don't know.

 

[Net4n6]

I used dental floss. It worked great.

 

[Mirlen]

Dental floss and a hair dryer. I found a hair dryer to warm up the adhesive worked well (This was in Jan/Feb so weather was near freezing). The individual letters on the sides come off quite easily, especially the smaller letters, just give them a little twist and they come right off once warmed up a little bit. The larger Toyota label is 1 piece so a little harder to get off. Nothing special needed to remove the adhesive, it should just rub off if any is left over, then touch up with some quick detailer etc or just wash the entire truck and you're set, nice and clean looking.

 

[08bluesr5]

where are you guys getting the 3m adhesive remover that im always hearing about? my 08 is about 3 weeks old and i want to take the badging of the front doors...i know since its new they should come off easy, but i want to do it right.

 

[Wolf]

where are you guys getting the 3m adhesive remover that im always hearing about? my 08 is about 3 weeks old and i want to take the badging of the front doors...i know since its new they should come off easy, but i want to do it right.

You can rub it off and most of it will come off but not until you've got blisters on your fingers. That stuff takes any residue right off. You can find it at an
auto paint supply shop- Annex Automotive or Rays Auto here in L.A.- it works on ANY kind of adhesive and never messes up the paint. I used it to get rid of a bunch of surf/skate stickers that were on a tool box for years. I've tried other stuff....alcohol, Bestine, wd40, nothing has ever worked as good as this stuff. I couldn't find it for a while and I thought it had been outlawed because of new AQMD/ OSHA/ / EPA rules or something then I found some at Annex and bought 2!

 

[shane43]

My wife used dental floss too. It worked great. Although she started to get tired at the end and heard that a hair dyer would make it easier...so she tried that, and ended up peeling the clearcoat off from too much heat.

Take your time, if you do use a hair dyer be very careful!

 

[Wolf]

My wife used dental floss too. It worked great. Although she started to get tired at the end and heard that a hair dyer would make it easier...so she tried that, and ended up peeling the clearcoat off from too much heat.

Take your time, if you do use a hair dyer be very careful!

Dental floss works great too. I just find it's faster to gently pop them off because most of the glue comes with the emblem that way. I also wouldn't recommend any type of heat other than just a hot car in the sun. If you do it in the summer you don't even need the car to be hot or in the sun- if your not too far north.