Replacing Kia emblems

16485 Views 33 Replies 18 Participants Last post by KunoMochi, Oct 9, 2021

jayschoon

Discussion Starter · Jan 17, 2021 (Edited)

Ok a small tutorial on replacing kia emblems for hood and trunk.

Equipment I used was:

The new emblems: several different varieties, mine were black carbon
Kia 3.0 K Logo Emblem Sets
I'd rate the emblems an A (good finish, real carbon fiber not plastic molded to look like it, chrome looked thick not cheap)
Heat gun
Goop off
Tar and wax remover
Rubbing Alcohol
Painter tape
Shop towels
Fishing line
Plastic pry tools

I used heat gun to heat up the emblems in A circular pattern until they were hot enough that I could touch for 2-3 secs without burning myself, make sure you don't go crazy here, you can always go hotter so don't go torching them🤔. I started at shoe edges till I could put plastic putty knife under emblem and pry up a little. Then used fishing line to saw back in forth till I hit the first post.

Then reheated a little and worked my putty knife around top of emblem, don't use huge amount of force. About the same as cutting in a block of cheese. It will start
letting go, I then took the small pry tool and used it to slice the stretched glue.

I reheated more and it came away pretty easy.

This is what the back of emblem of Hood and Trunk emblem looks like.

Then a used the heat gun to soften up glue a little so I could use my fingers and roll the glue off (think rubber cement on envelopes). After I got as much off as I could I used shop towels and goop off to rub the rest off. After that I used the tar and wax remover to take the residual goop off off. And then used the alcohol to take residual wax remover off.

There should be absolutely no residue left. and when wiping down with just towel should not be slick at all. it should drag at the towel. I then heated the back of emblem and the car emblem spot to make everything warm again (it's 38°F here). Lined up the emblem before removing paper backing from adhesive, found out where I wanted it.(You can use painters tape to marks the place where you want the sides to go to give you a reference) and barely touched it to car. Took a look at the alignment and it was good. So applied pressure to emblem to stick it tight. If the alignment is off you should be able to take it back off or move it slightly as long as you barely put emblem on before looking.

Front is about the same as the back. But I positioned the emblem before taking backing off the adhesive and then used about 6" of painter tape to tape it in place. making sure that I have enough tape so I could flip the emblem back enough so i could take backing off without removing the tape from either car or emblem. again you could use the tape to make alignment marks with edge of tape for reference if you want to be double sure.

Made sure that the alignment was where I wanted and and then took backing off emblem and flipped it down and again barely touched it to car. I found alignment was very slightly off and used the plastic tool to pry up a little and moved emblem till it was good.

I ceramic coated (or could use wax) the emblems and recoated area around it afterwards.
Hopefully this helps. I couldn't find anything on the net that was specific for our 2021 K5's, just the 2020's Optimas.

I also tried to do the steering wheel emblem but couldn't get the emblem off without marking it up. so if anyone has an idea on how to do that. I would appreciate the help!

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