Mk1 Leon De-Badge

Ashmeister_UK

Guest
Hey all, I decided I wanted to debadge my Leon TDI so set to work on it this morning, thought I would add a little bit of advice for anyone whos interested in doing this, heres what I used:

Warm water with washing up liquid
Hairdryer
Course Rag/Teatowel
Pair of hands
Brasso
Smooth rag
Plastic garden wire or Dental floss

Also I'm sorry if someones already done this...

Heres a pic of it with the badges still on, I'd already removed the TDI part...

2a7ae6x.jpg


So what I did, clean up the badges and working area with the warm soapy water

Get your hairdryer and heat up a letter for about 60 seconds, you can check if its ready by just tugging a bit at the corner of the letter with your nail. If it looks like its coming away from the sticky, turn the hairdryer off and use a piece of wire/floss to run behind the letter, this will peel it away from the glue leaving some residue on the car, while this is still warm use the flat of your thumb to rube the glue, it will roll up and stick to your thumb, and may even burn you as it did in my case! Get as much off as you can and continue this with the rest of the letters.

When they are all off, use the fibrous rag (teatowel) and rub the glue, the dry fibres on the rag should pick up the glue much better than if you do this with a smooth cotton rag, do this quite vigorously until all the glue/residue has came off, dont worry it wont harm your paint. Now clean down the area with your warm soapy water and dry it off.

Finally, get a little bit of brasso, or t-cut or g10 and just buff the area where the lettering was, this will make a really thin cut into the paint, just enough to get rid of any ghosting of where the lettering was. Voila! I ended up with a perfect finish, biggest tip I'd say is just take your time and dont rush towards the end as tempting as it may be!

2wn35ee.jpg
 

Gordz

Caught The Mod Bug Again!
May 31, 2007
1,325
1
North East
Looks good. Similar to what I did, but I just poured on warm water from kettle, then dental flossed it off, then used some WD40 to get rid of any sticky stuff, then a good polish :)
 

Ashmeister_UK

Guest
I'm a bit gutted now actually, your method sounds far simpler! LoL
 

magicoi

Active Member
Aug 31, 2007
254
0
Lincolnshire
Dental floss - no need for a hairdryer

Cloth and oil/tar/bug remover rub the adhesive off

Wash area

Polish

Admire.

I to off the SEAT & LEON badges and left Cupra on the left and TDI on the right. Prefer that to a bare backside!

Cheers for the pics though :)
 
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Dyscontinued

Active Member
Apr 15, 2007
1,142
4
Leeds
haha so the spoon is a rare choice I see?

Basically, it's the leverage effect. Stick the end of he spoon under the badge and push down the handle to leverage the badge.

The cloth/tea towel is to go between the spoon and the paintwork.

Worked a treat.
 

hoggy90

Full time sexaholic
Nov 14, 2009
689
0
Scotland
lol i used dental floss and hot water also....then got the last of the residue off with my fingers

better than when i debadged the corsa..i used a screwdriver haha it was a flat one so i didnt think it would scratch,but low and behold it did:lol:
bear in mind this was almost 3 years ago when i was still thick lol
 

nicholls22

Guest
Has anyone done this on a Red Leon yet? Was going to have a bash but worried you would see the paint colour difference?
 

Ashmeister_UK

Guest
Well to be honest mate you should be sound! Black shows up the difference worse than anything and I literally got a perfect finish, just take your time and give it a good polish/cut when your done.

Ash
 

nicholls22

Guest
Paint work on my car is pretty spot on like, so may have a bash of it. Did this on a white car a while back and despite machine polishing, G3, etc, you could still see where the badges were, but this was an fairly old car, even back then.

Thanks for the advice.
 

Gordz

Caught The Mod Bug Again!
May 31, 2007
1,325
1
North East
Has anyone done this on a Red Leon yet? Was going to have a bash but worried you would see the paint colour difference?

When I debadged my red ibiza mk3 there was a huge difference in paint colour, but I just used some red t-cut and it was as good as new.
 

nicholls22

Guest
Will get myself to Halfrauds tomorrow for some T-Cut and give it bash me thinks. Wish me luck!
 
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Guirkin

Guest
Goo gone!

Best thing to use to get rid of the adhesive is Goo-gone. Saves you standing there like an idiot scrubbing until your arm falls off.
 
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