Rear Door Trim - Removal and Rust

[Santawillis]

Will be embarking on some "light" rust repair while I stash away my change into a piggybank to do a full teardown and respray. Maybe in 25-30 years I will have enough

 

Now - I have tried the search bar and Google and found that there are two aluminum rivets securing the trim in the area I circled in red. My question is, do I have to remove that to attempt to pry loose the area in yellow?

 

 

 

[Mike Self]

Nope, you don't have to drill out those B pillar rivets.  Once you've drilled out the rivets holding the sill trim in place, you should be able to carefully pry up the trailing end of the sill trim (the Hoffmeister kink end) by using a thin piece of wood and a small hammer, wood placed under the bottom edge of the trim.  Once loosened along most of the piece, you can pull the trim towards the rear of the car and slide it out from under the B pillar trim.

 

Are you planning to remove the glass and gasket?  Suggest removing everything--trim, glass and gasket to look for and take care of rust--it's gonna be there...

 

mike

[stone02]

if you are going to rust repair in these areas, the best thing to do is remove 

both of the trims marked in color and also the glass. it it very easy to get them

all out and then the rubber strip under the lower trim comes

off. 1 unscrew the latch,  2 remove the vertical trim edge on the B pilar,  

3. open the window and prop with a 2x4 to hold glass out 3".

4. pry out the rubber vertical seal to see behind it,  5. remove four very

small screws under the rubber, it does not come off at this time as it holds

the glass too.  6. pull window out,  7  remove rubber window seal that goes

around top, back, bottom of glass, 8  both of the trims have aluminum rivets

which hold them in place, slice them off with a cold chisel and hammer,  

9  do the horizontal first and then the vertical.

under the vertical you will find perfect example of the original color if the

car was not repainted. it should take you less time to do this work than it 

took me to type it with two fingers.

good luck and update with pictures.

stone

[Santawillis]

Thanks for the boost! I'm going to pop the window out and tackle the rust more thoroughly.

Really appreciate the kind advice. I'll definitely follow up with some pics! By the way, how tough do you think putting it all back together will be? I am guessing its the reverse plus some new 1/8 aluminum rivets?

 

Rafael

[Mike Self]

The most difficult part of the reinstall is if you decide to replace the rubber gasket; that can be real PITA, bu if the old one is rotted/split/hard, now's the time to tackle it.  If you decide to do so, I did a column on exactly that job; PM me if you'd like a copy.

 

mike

[johnny02]

the Riveting back in is easy; and I had never done it before.  Somewhere on the forum if you search hard enough you can find the right size of the rivets.  Was actually one of the most satisfying parts of my restoration--I was pleasantly surprised how well it went.  And I didn't have a ton of trouble with the gasket.