Monday, September 13, 2010

Door chrome garnish trim removal

More trim coming off - this time, the thin (mostly) garnish trim that runs horizontally along the front door, and on the back door, curves up from the bottom of the door.

These pieces of trim are largely held onto the door by small bolts attached to rectangular plates. These plates slide into the back of the trim pieces, and the bolts pass through the door. On the inside of the door, they're fastened down with a nut, a washer, and a larger rubber washer piece. Here's a couple of photos on the inside of the rear door.



Once I had these all loose - the trim wouldn't come away. Something was holding the topmost end, where the trim met up with the rear fender companion piece. It took tearing out the (formerly) rubber seal to discover what - a small Phillips head screw. Sneaky! And naturally, this screw was a bear to get out.


The front door trim is attached in similar fashion, with the small bolts/nuts/washers. Mostly.


One of the differences is that since this trim piece tapers down to a rounded point, it's too narrow on that end for the mounting pieces - instead, there are a pair of tabs that pass through slots in the door, and these tabs are then twisted a bit so as not to budge. It's a simple matter to reach up inside the door with some needlenose pliers and - carefully! - straighten these tabs.

Annoyingly, for some reason, the tabs on the passenger side were twisted in the same direction as the driver's side - how, and why, I'm not sure - because one would think that the installers would twist these in mirror-fashion, considering how one has to reach up inside the door. Untwisting these tabs entailed getting my left hand with the pliers up *above* the tabs, and using both hands to steady/grip the pliers to get these tabs straightened out. Grumble.


Much like the rear door and that sneaky hidden last screw, there's a similar puzzle to the front door trim - one more bolt/nut on the very front edge of the door, tucked away near the top door hinge. Hooray for longer sockets.


The driver's side door garnish trim removed. The rear door trim is actually two pieces, one of which slides partway into the other. All of this trim is in good shape, thankfully.

No comments:

Post a Comment