rnelson

Hi Everyone,

Has anyone ever replaced the Mercedes star on the trunk with an AMG badge? I replaced the front star on my car with one and I am really happy with it. I was painting the emblems on my trunk and thinking that the star is just too big and a simple AMG badge like on the front would look good...

Any thoughts? Has anyone done this?

Rodney

rnelson

Well, since I can't seem to find anyone that has done it... I did it. I will attach pics below. At first I wanted to simply plastidip my trunk emblems, which I did in black, and it lasted about two years. I then decided that I wanted them to be the same silver color as the car. When I started to remove the emblems to paint them I noticed that the mercedes star was broken. So, I decided that it would be cool if I could have an AMG badge similar to what is on the front hood. Unfortunately, there is not such a thing. I did purchase an AMG hood badge a couple of years ago to replace the front star but over time it yellowed. So I decided to find a higher quality aluminum one and modify it. Below are the steps....

rnelson

1. Remove rear emblems by applying heat with a hair dryer or heat gun, be careful to keep the heat moving around as not to get them too hot. (Not the Star, as it is attached via three prongs that you must access by removing the turnk liner).
2. Use fishing line right after applying heat, to get behind the emblems and move carefully back and forth.
3. Use goof off, your finger nail, and carefully remove residue. (I ended up actually using rubbing compound and then polishing compound and an orbital polisher to remove remaining adhesive.
4. Use a small flat head screwdriver to remove the adhesive on the back of each emblem
5. I purchased a hood emblem on ebay, aluminum one. They all seem to have the same style metal base. I sanded the bottom of the base flat on a belt sander.
5. Sand the front of the chrome emblems and the base of the hood/soon to be trunk emblem with 2000 grit.
6. spray Prime the surfaces
7. Spray paint, I did four coats.
8. Purchase 3m double sided tape and cut and apply to back of all emblems.
9. Use blue tape and a ruler to assist in getting the emblems in the right locations. I just eyeballed the starting point and then measured up both sides to make sure they started from the edge and bottom of trunk at the same distance. If that makes sense.

rnelson

Here are the pics. Oh, and I found some silver dupli-color paint that matched very closely, originally for Chrysler???

ddb

Beautiful car! I really like the trunk letter and grill treatment. I don't dislike the star replacement badge, but think a star painted to match the adjacent letters would look good as well. Nice job!

rnelson

Hi ddb, thank you for the compliments. I agree the star would look great painted as well and would be just as easy to do!

illest

looks good. I feel like the emblem should be bigger.