SLE V6 Emblems

[tresola]

Question for you guys - how are the side emblems supposed to read on the car (orderwise) - SLE V6 or V6 SLE? My driver's side says SLE V6 and the passenger side reads V6 SLE. I'm assuming the dumb nut paint shop screwed up the passenger side and flipped them around. And... they used so much adhesive it bled out and I'm not sure how I can remove it. That in itself is worth the trip over to the body shop... But those emblems are driving me nuts!!!

[jimmm]

Good Morning, Tresola. I have a Gen 2 which doesn't have the emblems on the doors like the Gen 1, but I would go with the one on the door that looks like it was never tampered with. I suppose it's really just a matter of personal preference. I see a lot of Gen 1 owners here who have removed them altogether. You could also do a google image search, or any other provider actually, and see pictures of your car online. As you can see on my Gen 2 trunk it reads V6 SLE.

[tresola]

I think the Gen 2s have the rear badge only, I've noticed the older ones have both sides. I could take the emblems off I guess, except I'm not sure how you remove all the adhesive. They put so much of it on it oozes out literally. Yuck. I could always put a "hemi" emblem on instead. Just kidding! Actually, I was thinking of pinstriping the car, maybe a silver flake or if I end up gold plating everything, I'll put a gold stripe on instead. I think the side emblems would get in the way of the stripeline otherwise.

[jimmm]

I don't know which year Solara you have, Tresola, but I got these pictures off eBay for you to look at. It's a 2001 SLE V6. It looks pretty sharp to me.







Happy motoring! Jimmm

[tresola]

Thanks for the pics! Its proof enough to me that the dumb butts at the body shop screwed the emblems up! I'm going to be taking the car over to them this week to get that part fixed. Ugh. It just can't be that hard to get two little words in the right order! Or is it...

[yaddadaimsayin]

Hey Anne,

I just removed the emblems off my car a few weeks ago. Its actually not that hard! I went to Kragen's to ask for Goo-gone, but they didn't have it anymore so I bought Goo-off. Basically, you just pour the liquid around the emblems, let it sit for a good 10-15 minutes until it seeps inside and settles behind it, and I used dental floss and just slowly wiggled it around like a loose tooth until it came off. Then you have all that stick stuff left over right? Just pour a little more on there, and it rolls right off with your fingers. Afterwards, wash, wax, voila! My SLE is black but as far as I can tell, there was no fading or paint damage from this process.


There's a coupla threads out there for emblem removal. Hope this helps.

[yaddadaimsayin]

Oh, and if you want to put it back on, you can just use 3M tape. I took mine off to paint them a different color, so I had to put it back on too. The whole thing cost like 5 bucks! DIY, don't go to the shop

[tresola]

Hmmm! Its worth a shot. My only concern is if its the same kind of glue as the factory uses. I'm not entirely sure since I can see the thick yellow glue if its going to be easy to remove or not. I could always give it a try, very gently, to make sure I don't take any paint off. I like the idea of just retaping the badges on. I might just leave them off altogether and leave people guessing. I want to take the toyota emblems and turn them upside down like the one car I looked at. They did it accidentally but actually it was quite amusing. Its a good conversation piece!

[tresola]

I don't know which year Solara you have, Tresola, but I got these pictures off eBay for you to look at. It's a 2001 SLE V6. It looks pretty sharp to me.







Happy motoring! Jimmm

I love the gold! I still want to gold plate everything. I wonder how much the kits are and how easy it is to do. Everything will be gold then- grill, emblems, wheels...

[jimmm]

I've seen lots of information on gold plating and/or buying already gold plated emblems just by surfing the web. I usually use Google. Give it a try and see what you come up with.

[SleeperSolara]

Just shave the emblems. lol.

[Chinky420]

^^x2 another vote to shave the emblems off completely

(although i don't disagree with you taking it back to the shop to have them remove it....considering the adhesive may be different)

leave em guessing

[tresola]

My mechanic is so nice, he offered to have his body shop remove them for me. They will be putting on the trim piece I'm missing for the mirror anyways. We were talking last night and we decided the car would look pretty cool without any emblems. He also mentioned that usually the shop will buy a new set of emblems and they have a sticky tape adhesive to them. They only glue them if they keep them and reuse them. I have to laugh, the shop who did the crappy dyslexic work calls themselves, "Quality Auto Body". HA!

So, do any of you have pictures of a naked Solara (w/o emblems that is)? I'd like to see before I rip all of them off. Or maybe just rip the sides off.

I looked for gold plating kits but haven't had a lot of luck thus far.

[jimmm]

I looked for gold plating kits but haven't had a lot of luck thus far.

DID YOU LOOK AT THIS ONE? I might try it to touch up a couple of places where it looks like the plating has faded a bit.

http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/plugnplate.htm

[tresola]

I looked for gold plating kits but haven't had a lot of luck thus far.

DID YOU LOOK AT THIS ONE? I might try it to touch up a couple of places where it looks like the plating has faded a bit.

http://www.caswellplating.com/kits/plugnplate.htm

Strange, I've never seen this technique before! I've seen some kits where you paint and others you dip, but never this process. I wonder how well it works...