Custom Front Arrow
 

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the 96-99 front arrows fading over time. Mine was getting pretty bad and it was finally starting to get to me. I decided I'd try a silver decal similar to what Singscountry has. My grille is already silver and I've got everything cleared so I thought $3 would be a reasonable gamble to test it out and lose all color up front. They don't make arrow overlay decals specifically for the Bonneville so I had to guess on which one to order.
I go to put it on this morning and I wasn't very impressed with it. Soooo...off it comes WITH my arrow :oops: (I knew it was already sort of loose so I can't say I was overly surprised).
Instead of freaking out too bad, I tried to think of the best way to fix the situation. I thought about just painting the surface of it with the paint I used for my grille, but that would probably have worn off easily. Instead, I opted to scrape off all the old paint from inside the arrow. It took about an hour with a razor blade but I finally got it clean.

Here's how it came off the car. The fading wasn't pictured that well, but it was pretty bad. The little facets really magnify it too when you move around.
https://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e...w/OldFront.jpg
https://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e...ow/OldBack.jpg
This is after scraping all the old paint and junk off the arrow.
https://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e...ClearFront.jpg
https://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e.../ClearBack.jpg
I accidentally deleted the pic of the finished arrow in my hand which showed some more detail. The little facets really do some cool tricks with the silver. Here it is on the car though.
https://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e.../Installed.jpg
Finally, a few more pics for your viewing pleasure.
https://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e.../Arrow/SA1.jpg
https://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e.../Arrow/SA2.jpg
https://img50.imageshack.us/img50/1155/sa35jp.jpg

I still don't know how I like the result. It's cool in that all the color is out of the front, but I still do like the red. It's not like I can't take it back off and re-do it, but I'm gonna leave it like this for a while and see how it grows on me. What do you guys think?

wow, i think that looks fabulous! only thing i think i would do is maybe do the little cross in the middle black and the edges black. or just leave it the way it is now. :P

Very, very nice. I think it looks great the way it is!

Joe.

Looks awesome especilly with the DCM. Very nice,Sir!!!!!

looks very good, howd you reattach it to the front?

3M double sided emblem tape

I think it looks awesome...of course, I'm partial to the whole silver look. ;) Very nicely done. What a job that had to be. I think that up close it looks far better than my "cheat" way. I chose the peel and stick method because I didn't want to scratch things up trying to get it off... worked out very well for you I think! :thumbup:

Wow! That really ties that front end together... this could almost be like clearing the corners type mod... WOAH! I'd do the same, but my car has an emblem that matches the paint color. Kudos to you.

looks awesome

where are you located in WI?

wow, that looks good. I think I might just have to steal that idea