How To De-Badge Your Truck

• July 20, 2015
• / Story By
  Ali Mansour

Brand recognition is big business. Show a truck guy a gold bowtie and he’ll think of Chevy. Show a car guy a prancing horse and they’ll instantly tell you that it’s a Ferrari. Accompanying these brand badges are often subsidiary emblems that represent the model type, what type of engine it has and even if it’s “eco-friendly”. My daily driver is a Cummins-powered Ram 2500. All of that information can be easily deciphered by the extra-large chrome badges glued along the side and tailgate of my truck. I’ve never been a big fan of bumper stickers and shortly behind that dislike is brand badging. To me, the badges often take away from the flow of the vehicle. This brings me to the subject of de-badging. The concept is simple, remove any signage from your rig that isn’t riveted or bolted in place. If it has an adhesive back, it’s coming off. This is about as far as I usually travel into cosmetic upgrades, but it’s worth the small time investment for the visual gains. You don’t necessarily need any specialty tools to de-badge your vehicle, but there are few things that will make the job go easier. I like to use a cheap plastic scraper to pop the badge away from the adhesive backing. Some prefer to use fishing line. Sometimes you can get lucky with the fishing line and get behind the adhesive and peel both off at once. I took my badges off on a blistering hot and humid summer day, which helped both the top part and backing come off easier. Using a little adhesive/sticker remover, I was able to peel off most of the adhesive backing by hand. To ensure that it was all off, and to speed up the process, I attached an eraser wheel to my hand drill and quickly zipped off the light layer of adhesive left. After I cleaned off the residual rubber, I hit the area with a light wax and polish. The end result might not knock your socks off, but it did exactly what I wanted it to. It cleaned up the appearance of the truck. It also exposed more of the forward body line that adds to the flow. I’m thinking my next project will be to de-chrome the truck. But, that’s going to be a project for another day!