I removed the trim, was loose, will be a PITA to fix properly

lord_galathon

Well-known member
The plastic trim on the Sidekick was loose, the car is 16 years old this year and as of this winter I no longer have a spot to store it so I want to prepare it/rustproof it as best I can. It runs well and is loads of fun with the soft-top down + I want to keep it for my daughter to drive next spring when she gets her license.

I removed the trim altogether and I can tell right away I will have issues:

On the rear, the trim was attached to an added body strip of metal WELDED to the rest of the bodywork.

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This is after washing it and stripping off the rustproofing oil and grease from the past 16 years. This is what it looked before I washed it:

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Yeah, that's welded on. Any ideas on how to remove it?

Should I sand it down good and put plastic over it instead, then sand it down and repaint?

Plugging the holes. They're huge, the size of spoiler holes. There are a shit load of them. 10 on each door + easily another 15 per side, that's about 50 holes to fill.

How the heck do I do that efficiently? It's going to take a month of 9/5 work all day to get it done properly.

Any ideas?
 
I decided to adjust all the trims, rustproof properly and replace the trim on the car. Took all day yesterday, I sanded down wherever I had rust, primed, sanded some more and spraypainted the correct green color (there's a paint shop near my house that color matched it) and it looks good:

Here's a before picture, on the passenger's side windshield pillar you can see a huge rust spot. (this was taken last fall when I stored it for the winter.)

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And here's a similar angle with the rust fixed and the trim panels reinstalled:

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There was rust under the panels as well, I removed and primed but only rough sanded those, no need for impeccable paint job under the panels...

I also trimmed the front part of the door trim panels because when it was hot and the car was left in direct sunlight, sometimes the trim would catch the door frame and warp, now I have about an inch play. Looks weird and I don't like the gap, I might fill it with something but I don't want to wind up on the Ti-Coune thread...

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And repainted my rear bumper that was hit not once, but twice in the last month! The second time a drunk drove into it from the side while he was trying to park next to me. I was parked and sitting in the car having an ice cream when it happened. It was just a scratch but I was PISSED. Only reason I didn't call the cops on the man, who was visibly (and smellingly!!) drunk is that he had Georgia plates and I didn't want him to wind up in jail during his vacations here. I gave him a major yelling though, to the point that both my wife and daughter thought I overreacted...

...until they saw the damage he had done to the rear bumper. lol...

Here's a before picture, this is after the FIRST girl hit me from behind at a stop sign. I haven't got a picture from the damage the second car made, it was a big red scratch on the driver's side going around the corner of the bumper. He hit me with a red SAAB. I'm not sure this photo will show up.

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And the bumper after:

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It's clean now but still warped. All the plastics on the truck look like they're expanding...
 
Thanks.

Ideally I would've preferred to remove the trim but there were 62 holes to plug + the extra welded on part on the back sides. Had I decided to do that, I'd have had to weld those holes shut, then sand down the rear fenders and repaint the whole truck.

No.

Sorry.

The point was to keep it as stock as possible. It's 16 years old and has 190k. It will not be eternal.
 
Pas mal clean, mais pourquoi pas le rouler l'hiver, à part pour le toit en toile ça doit ben aller non ?
 
J'ai un hard top. Mais je prenais le train de banlieue depuis 16 ans et j'ai pas besoin de 3 chars immatriculés pis tout pendant l'hiver. J'aime mieux ma Subaru ou la Lancer les deux avec les bancs chauffants.
 
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