Mounting the badges on the DS

Before the boot lid can be attached to the car, the Citroen DS badges need to be mounted.   This is something I have unsuccessfully been trying to do for a few weeks.   I found a solution last night that works for me, no idea if this is the ‘correct’ way as I couldn’t find any reference on the internet.  My car, being a 1970 model has the individual letters rather than the rectangular plate.   Personally I prefer the earlier ones.

The badges attach by having a ‘post’ that goes through a hole in the boot lid.   There are then these fasteners that need to be pushed onto the ‘post’  they grip the post via tabs that bend back just enough as they are slid on.    The challenge is that these tabs are very strong and I was unable to push them on with my fingers.   I didn’t want to use anything sharp either, as that could have damaged my new paint.

I found that a 5mm socket was able to push on the edges of the fastener, while not touching the post.   This at least allowed me to push on the fastener, but they were still not bending.  I tried using petroleum jelly to lubricate the post to no avail.

To get more leverage, I used a small ratcheting handle normally used for getting to hard bolts.  It fit nicely in the ball of my hand allowing much more leverage.    The other ball of my hand was on the back of the badge.   This allowed me to push on the fastener.  The ratcheting handle can be seen in the bottom of the photo below.

Before I found this method, I managed to destroy one of the fasteners by trying to expand the tabs with a nail and hammer, so I am one short.   Given each fastener is about 30c, the smart move would have been to order a couple of extras.    I will need a few more rubber covers for the window adjustment screws, another cheap part I should have purchased a few more of.

I bought new badges as the old ones had a lot of overspray and had lost some of their gold.   The new ones look pretty good on the new paint.