Best way to pop off the lettering

Decided to rechrome the lettering on my Farmall 300. Just wondering the best way to pop off the little clips.

I'm thinking it's stainless steel

(reply to post at 18:34:38 01/22/18)

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You are correct appears to be. So guess I'll polish instead of chrome. What is the best way to get them off?

With a pick tool pull the center of the clip away from the sheet metal by working side to side slowly.
It takes time and incremental noodling near the stud to get them to creep out and off. Or grab them with
needle nose and try to find new ones. Jim
tool type

I don't know how to get them off but I have seen many where someone tried and broke off the tabs that go through the sheet metal.

Hood off, take small punch and drive each pin down a little until almost out then the rest of way out. Pins have a fragile mounting to emblem. Don't know how original the aftermarket ones look now but they used to be cheeper than a chrome job. Thinking the originals were stainless.

I cut them with a pair of side cutters and they come right off. Then a trip to the hardware store to buy new ones.

You have gotten some great pointers, and when I can save them the way Jim outlines, that would be my first choice.
On all of the hundred series I have worked on (the limit of my experience), the very delicate pins were always silver soldered to the back of the stainless emblem. The barrel retainers are almost always very rusted.

As others have accurately stated, the original emblems/ pins are often found in a ruined condition, after previous owners in a state of misguided exuberance tried to remove them. I have silver soldered both the old pins and replacements back on, but avoid this whenever possible. To avoid this, I bought a slew of the tiny barrel retainers years ago, and have never tried to save the old ones. Thus, I feel free to sacrifice the retainer to save the pin and emblem. When I run out of retainers it will be time to stop working on tractors. That assumes I can remember what a tractor is.
The procedure I outline below assumes that you will sacrifice the original
barrel retainers. I have seen lots of cases where folks used the pierced rectangular clips as replacements. Seems to work okay, just not my first choice, and there are a couple of places on the utilities where back side of these are hard to get to. One reason the barrel style is handy is that it allows you to install the emblem "Blind", with limited access to the back of the panel.

To do so;
I begin by soaking all if the pins in whatever penetrating oil I have handy, let it soak a good long while.

Then I take some smooth jaw pliers and very very carefully crush the retainer, working my way around the pin. The trick here is that you must avoid bending the pin, or put any angular force upon it. Doing so will fail the silver solder joint. It isn't unusual to take two or three minutes to crush each retainer. For good measure, I sometimes am able to spin the retainer by hand on the pin if it is loose enough in the sheet metal hole.

At this point, sometimes the emblem will fall of from its own weight.

If it hasn't already fallen off, I take a high quality (I favor Mayhew) pin punch and drive the pins through the retainers, working my way from end to end and back and forth so as to avoid bending the emblem. Sometimes the retainer stays on the pin and drives through the sheet metal, sometimes the pin drives through the retainer.

Easy does it. Take lots of time. Be patient. Really patient.

jeff

Needle nose pliers and twist back and forth repeatedly, while applying a small pulling force. They will work off as long as the emblems pins aren't super rusty.
I've done many this way and have reused them after.