- First Name
- Steve
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2022
- Threads
- 53
- Messages
- 862
- Reaction score
- 811
- Location
- Chicagoland
- Vehicle(s)
- 2023 Bronco sport
So are those overlays coming on a slow boat from China?. I've been waiting to see how it turns out. Some where I came across the part numbers for the Gloss Black letters for the grille. With hte Hot Pepper Red I was considering that option as well. Oh and where is that ceiling insulation?Grille Letters
The giant 3D letters on the grill has always been something I didn’t really like. The white letters makes that worse. I’ve seen so many people post about putting the overlays on the letters. This is an improvement for the white letters but still a compromise to me.
So I started thinking about what I could do to change it to something I would like. I looked at eBay for pictures of the grille without the letters. Which started to spark some ideas.
At first I wanted to eliminate the “BRONCO” all together. I decided in the end that it would be too plain. I also thought about putting a light bar to carry the light all the way across from one headlight to the other. That too would have issues in that there would be a spot between the headlight and the custom light bar. Then would the light bar light match the headlight light? Again, another dead end idea that just had too many issues.
So, I decided it was really the “white” and the “3D” that bothered me. I was determined to do something different that what I have seen others do. That really comes down to a PlastiDip spray or the sticker overlays.
Removing the 3D letters is quite the ordeal. There are a couple of hurdles here. The first try was to just pull the letters off, thinking that they would just be glued on. Unfortunately, Ford got way more aggressive than that. Pulling on the letters just did not seem to be an option. There is some adhesive but also a mechanical attachment. To get to the inside of the grille, you really have to remove the whole front of the car.

Once you get to this point, you’ll realize that Ford used push-nuts on the inside of the letters. These are essentially something that cannot be removed because they slide over the plastic during installation but will bite into the plastic when you try to remove it. Now, I was left with the decision to go “all in”. And I did, by breaking the plastic pins on each of the letters so that the push-nuts could be released.
The interesting thing is that Ford put a different clip on each end. On the “B” and the trailing “O”.

The other letters just have 2 posts

The other thing you might notice is the gate vestige from the injection mold in the field of the letter. This is in multiple letters.
Now how do I get all of this smoothed out? I started with some JB Weld Plastic Weld Putty. Which allowed me to fill in the big holes relatively well but still hard to get somewhat flat/even. The big holes in the end letters is the real problem area.
J-B Weld 8237 PlasticWeld Plastic Repair Epoxy Putty - 2 oz.
I had some regular JB Weld in the garage that is more liquid to fill in some of the smaller gaps. I then had to smooth all of this out as best I could. Using some razor scrapers got everything closer (including the gate vestiges). It was then time to sand it smooth. This is a delicate operation because you don’t want to sand anything outside of the letters.
Here is a picture before the standard JB Weld and the sanding.

Here is a picture with the standard JB Weld and after sanding.

I have ordered some overlay stickers and I will see if that is good enough or if it needs something more. The stickers have not arrived yet, but I will update this post with pictures/thoughts once they arrive and are installed.
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