Fastening, Joining & Assembly

I'm sure anyone who has take off an inner panel lining in a car will have encountered this problem.
Door panels are bitches seldom designed for dissasembly.

The usual solutions are slivers of wood/plastic to replaces broken/stripped plastic 'nuts', bits of tape, glue ...whatever.

I'm sure the main dealer will have the right tools and know exactly how to pop off the panel without f*cking it up whilst maintaining the integrity of the fittings.

Del

The tool to pull door panels is only a couple of bucks at the auto parts store. I bought one and it worked ok. Still broke most of the plastic plugs. Cheap to replace though. It kept bending as the panel was being pulled. Still the bigger problem for me was the reason for removing the panel in the first place. The window motor crapped out. Drilling out pop rivets is a pain in the butt when you can barely get your hand inside the door to hold a pair of pliers or vise grips to keep the other end from spinning. The solution could be to still punch the holes for the replacement motor to mount. But, instead of pop riveting the OEM part, how about spot welding it. The punched holes could be used to locate for pins or bosses on the OEM part to speed the process along. Then when the motor needs replaced the spot welds are drilled out. Spot welds are drilled out all the time to replace body panels.

Please make checks payable to:

Nash Machinery Repair, Bridgeport, IL

If this goes to patent court I will cut in each witness on the profits for your time and trouble.

It's easier to teach an illiterate how to use a pop riveter than a spot welder. Although both can be done quite well with a robot.

92 Honda accord. I had new tires installed. The fellow who put the tires back on went crazy with the impact wrench. A few months later I jack the car up in the drive way to rotate the tires only to find the lugs had been necked and every last one of them broke off. I'm really glad they didn't break when traveling at 70 mph!

Well, now it's time to replace the studs. To remove the rotors, I practically had to disassemble the entire suspension!