HOW-TO Remove interior pieces for painting
02-04-2008, 06:20 PM
#1
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HOW-TO Remove interior pieces for painting
I put together a little interior piece removal for the people who were asking about it. I hope this helps! You will need a phillips head screw driver, a socket wrench to remove the battery terminal thing, an allen wrench for the steering wheel parts, and a few hours if this is your first time.
We are going to work on the 4 door pieces first. The door handle, window controls, ring around the handle. and the door jam [the part in the top right of the image]
We need to get the door handle/closer thing off first, so look at the top of it and you will see a little space that fits a flat head perfectly.
Place a flathead in there and pop its face off. It will give fairly easily. Also make sure you slip when you're doing it so you can get a good permanent gash in there like I did.. Once the piece is off, flip it over and you will see a few sets of tiny prongs that hold in the ring.
Push them out and the ring will pop right off. This is the easiest piece to get off.
Okay now to get the door handle and window controls out, we need to take off the side of the door. Now that the face is off of the door handle/closer you will see 2 screws. One at the top and bottom of the piece you just removed.
Philips head them off. They are a bit long and pretty tight on there, but nothing we cant handle. There's also one more screw in the door handle. There's a little opening on the left side of the flap that you will be able to fit in a TINY screw driver or a razor blade. I used a razor blade and chipped mine. [Repainted it now though]
Pop open this little face place and philips that one out too. Once those are off we need to pry off the frame. Place one hand here [ there will be a little gap where you can place your fingers for some grip. ]
...and pull towards you. there's only little plastic nails holding the door frame in and they should give pretty easily. Just pull enough till you feel a few of them pop off. Dont worry about breaking these plastic things, because they wont. They might come lose and fall off but they are easy to put back in. Trust me, you will see once the door frame is off. Okay now place your hand here
...and pull again like you just did on the other side, this will free the rest of the bottom of the frame. do this one more time on the top left and the rest of the frame should pretty much be loose. dont try to remove the frame just yet because there is a wiring harness attaching the two.
What you want to do now is give the loose frame a 180 counter-clockwise turn.
this will give you easy access to the wiring harness to unplug it. Look in between the door and the frame and you will see a wiring harness connected to the door controls.
...unplug it. Its the typical plug where you need to push a piece down in order to slide it out. I think its connected to the back bottom of the controls. okay cool, now your door frame is off. We need to remove the 2 pieces now for painting. the door handle has a hook and 2 kind of push parts to hold it to the frame.
these buggers are tricky to get off. You can actually cut away a bit of this if you are having trouble. I had to and have seen no problems because of it. You can stick your philips head or perhaps a ballpoint pen into the back and kinda stab it out if that helps. For the window controls they are attached by several little clasps and and hooks. just push each one in and the controls will come out fairly easy.
To get the electronics part of it off of the door controls just remove the screws that you see it will all come apart.
Really fairly simple, just don't lose any screws or parts.
To get the door jam out, this is just pushing and pulling. It takes a bit or force. You can see the back of it here and where the holders are. This part just kinda pops out. also, there is bird poop on my window. also, i would remove this part before you take the door frame off.
Moving into the drivers sider control frame [or Cluster Bezel]. just wedge your fingers in and pull out in these 2 spots.
Its a tight fit behind the steering wheel but a tiny bit of bending will get it out. You can see here where the places it attaches to the dash are.
Okay onto the center console. This one is the trickiest the first time you do it, but after that it's a breeze. put the car in neutral and pull the hand brake up all the way. and unscrew the shift **** and remove it. First you need to get this bottom piece out. Grip tightly and tug
...towards the cupholders/shift ****. DONT PULL UP. But towards you. Know what i mean? pull out not up. ...yeah. you need to do this on both sides, do them together if you are able to. Again, this piece will be attached to the car by a wiring harness [for the cig lighter]. If you have an automatic there will be a few different plastic parts that kind of get in the way, just toss them off to the side as we wont use them till reassembly. Here are what the hooks look like that attach the waterfall to the dashboard.
I forgot to take pictures of these steps, but just unhook the cig lighter and get that piece free so we can go paint it. Also, the frame that is around the shift **** is easy to remove, just flip over the piece that its connected to and you will see there are just a few hooks holding it on. Great almost done. Now for the big daddy water fall piece. its easy, promise.
Put your hand here
...and get some grip and pull out. The bottom part of the piece will come loose. Now grip on both sides here and pull straight out.
it will take some wiggling to get used to but again its really not tough. your cars face has now exploded. [in this picture you can also see the cig lighter wire, and at the end you can see an opaque plug looking thing, thats where it unplugs.
I forget which wires attached to the back of this console, since i no longer have the stock setup, but I do know the A/C controls harness is there and that will need to be unhooked.
Depending on your setup, you will probably have a few more harnesses for your stereo and such that need to be unhooked. Once all of these are detached the waterfall will be free.
the steering wheel is easy peasy. unhook the battery first!
I spent 45 minutes doing this my first time with it attached and the horn kept going off at 8am on a saturday... Neighbors were not happy.
Look on both sides of the steering wheel and you will see 2 holes that lead to Torq screws.
I suggest you pick one of these up if you don't have one already. [Allen Wrenches work just as well for this]
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/...ctId=100340982
These were very very hard to unscrew out the first time. they were in there very tight. once you get them out though, the face of the steering wheel will come loose. than its just one more screw you and you're home free. Once you get the screw out on both sides, they will just pop out too.
These are all of the parts inside the steering wheel volume control piece.
Just don't lose and of them. they only go back together one way so reassembly is not an issue.
Im not really going to cover painting in this tut, just do some searching on how to do it. I recommend these paints for your primer, base, and finisher. the ones in front I use more than the ones in back.
I hope this helped! If you have any questions about masking or painting please post them and I will add them to the end of this tutorial. Thanks guys! Also, don't forget there are other pieces you can paint. the A/C vents are popular. The Glove compartment handle. The roof clothing hanger things. The tc stereo door covering. The backseat cup holders or back pillars. The list goes on.
We are going to work on the 4 door pieces first. The door handle, window controls, ring around the handle. and the door jam [the part in the top right of the image]
We need to get the door handle/closer thing off first, so look at the top of it and you will see a little space that fits a flat head perfectly.
Place a flathead in there and pop its face off. It will give fairly easily. Also make sure you slip when you're doing it so you can get a good permanent gash in there like I did.. Once the piece is off, flip it over and you will see a few sets of tiny prongs that hold in the ring.
Push them out and the ring will pop right off. This is the easiest piece to get off.
Okay now to get the door handle and window controls out, we need to take off the side of the door. Now that the face is off of the door handle/closer you will see 2 screws. One at the top and bottom of the piece you just removed.
Philips head them off. They are a bit long and pretty tight on there, but nothing we cant handle. There's also one more screw in the door handle. There's a little opening on the left side of the flap that you will be able to fit in a TINY screw driver or a razor blade. I used a razor blade and chipped mine. [Repainted it now though]
Pop open this little face place and philips that one out too. Once those are off we need to pry off the frame. Place one hand here [ there will be a little gap where you can place your fingers for some grip. ]
...and pull towards you. there's only little plastic nails holding the door frame in and they should give pretty easily. Just pull enough till you feel a few of them pop off. Dont worry about breaking these plastic things, because they wont. They might come lose and fall off but they are easy to put back in. Trust me, you will see once the door frame is off. Okay now place your hand here
...and pull again like you just did on the other side, this will free the rest of the bottom of the frame. do this one more time on the top left and the rest of the frame should pretty much be loose. dont try to remove the frame just yet because there is a wiring harness attaching the two.
What you want to do now is give the loose frame a 180 counter-clockwise turn.
this will give you easy access to the wiring harness to unplug it. Look in between the door and the frame and you will see a wiring harness connected to the door controls.
...unplug it. Its the typical plug where you need to push a piece down in order to slide it out. I think its connected to the back bottom of the controls. okay cool, now your door frame is off. We need to remove the 2 pieces now for painting. the door handle has a hook and 2 kind of push parts to hold it to the frame.
these buggers are tricky to get off. You can actually cut away a bit of this if you are having trouble. I had to and have seen no problems because of it. You can stick your philips head or perhaps a ballpoint pen into the back and kinda stab it out if that helps. For the window controls they are attached by several little clasps and and hooks. just push each one in and the controls will come out fairly easy.
To get the electronics part of it off of the door controls just remove the screws that you see it will all come apart.
Really fairly simple, just don't lose any screws or parts.
To get the door jam out, this is just pushing and pulling. It takes a bit or force. You can see the back of it here and where the holders are. This part just kinda pops out. also, there is bird poop on my window. also, i would remove this part before you take the door frame off.
Moving into the drivers sider control frame [or Cluster Bezel]. just wedge your fingers in and pull out in these 2 spots.
Its a tight fit behind the steering wheel but a tiny bit of bending will get it out. You can see here where the places it attaches to the dash are.
Originally Posted by engifineer
...I recommend pulling from the sides, towards the bottom out first. The clips tend to go in at a slight downward angle, so that method seems to be safest on the clips.
Okay onto the center console. This one is the trickiest the first time you do it, but after that it's a breeze. put the car in neutral and pull the hand brake up all the way. and unscrew the shift **** and remove it. First you need to get this bottom piece out. Grip tightly and tug
...towards the cupholders/shift ****. DONT PULL UP. But towards you. Know what i mean? pull out not up. ...yeah. you need to do this on both sides, do them together if you are able to. Again, this piece will be attached to the car by a wiring harness [for the cig lighter]. If you have an automatic there will be a few different plastic parts that kind of get in the way, just toss them off to the side as we wont use them till reassembly. Here are what the hooks look like that attach the waterfall to the dashboard.
I forgot to take pictures of these steps, but just unhook the cig lighter and get that piece free so we can go paint it. Also, the frame that is around the shift **** is easy to remove, just flip over the piece that its connected to and you will see there are just a few hooks holding it on. Great almost done. Now for the big daddy water fall piece. its easy, promise.
Put your hand here
...and get some grip and pull out. The bottom part of the piece will come loose. Now grip on both sides here and pull straight out.
it will take some wiggling to get used to but again its really not tough. your cars face has now exploded. [in this picture you can also see the cig lighter wire, and at the end you can see an opaque plug looking thing, thats where it unplugs.
I forget which wires attached to the back of this console, since i no longer have the stock setup, but I do know the A/C controls harness is there and that will need to be unhooked.
Depending on your setup, you will probably have a few more harnesses for your stereo and such that need to be unhooked. Once all of these are detached the waterfall will be free.
the steering wheel is easy peasy. unhook the battery first!
Originally Posted by engifineer
...just as safe practice, leave the battery cable off for a good 15 - 20 min before taking the steering wheel apart. Airbags can deploy for a short while after the power is removed. They are much safer than they used to be, but always better safe than sorry.
I spent 45 minutes doing this my first time with it attached and the horn kept going off at 8am on a saturday... Neighbors were not happy.
Look on both sides of the steering wheel and you will see 2 holes that lead to Torq screws.
I suggest you pick one of these up if you don't have one already. [Allen Wrenches work just as well for this]
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/...ctId=100340982
These were very very hard to unscrew out the first time. they were in there very tight. once you get them out though, the face of the steering wheel will come loose. than its just one more screw you and you're home free. Once you get the screw out on both sides, they will just pop out too.
These are all of the parts inside the steering wheel volume control piece.
Just don't lose and of them. they only go back together one way so reassembly is not an issue.
Im not really going to cover painting in this tut, just do some searching on how to do it. I recommend these paints for your primer, base, and finisher. the ones in front I use more than the ones in back.
I hope this helped! If you have any questions about masking or painting please post them and I will add them to the end of this tutorial. Thanks guys! Also, don't forget there are other pieces you can paint. the A/C vents are popular. The Glove compartment handle. The roof clothing hanger things. The tc stereo door covering. The backseat cup holders or back pillars. The list goes on.
02-04-2008, 08:36 PM
#4
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Scikotics
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Location: Minneapolis, MN
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I cant see all of the pics right now, but are you talking about taking out the center of the steering wheel (with the air bag) ? If so, you probably had a hard time because those are not hex screws, they are T-30 Torx bolts. They come right out with a torx driver. Only takes about 30 seconds tops to get the center of the wheel out and a good pull to get the controls out of the wheel. Maybe you were talking about another part? I will have to wait to get to where I can see the pics. There is a write up around here for completely stripping the interior as well. But good job writing it up.
02-04-2008, 08:40 PM
#5
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No, you're right now that I think about it. I used the wrong word. Torx is right. I had a hard time because it felt like they were superglued in. The grip on them was fine though. I'll fix it in the writeup. 30 seconds you're right, it was just the initial loosening.
02-04-2008, 08:41 PM
#6
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Can see the pics now. Those are torx, not hex. Very easy to remove with the right tool ;)
Also, on the cluster bezel, I recommend pulling from the sides, towards the bottom out first. The clips tend to go in at a slight downward angle, so that method seems to be safest on the clips.
Not stepping on your writeup at all, just adding some info. I have taken the tC dash apart so many times, I practically have nicknames for every part
I can even take the window controls out without removing the door panel.... but I wont write up how, cause it is just too easy to break something doing so... I dont even do it when I am taking someone elses apart, I take off the door panel
Also, on the cluster bezel, I recommend pulling from the sides, towards the bottom out first. The clips tend to go in at a slight downward angle, so that method seems to be safest on the clips.
Not stepping on your writeup at all, just adding some info. I have taken the tC dash apart so many times, I practically have nicknames for every part
I can even take the window controls out without removing the door panel.... but I wont write up how, cause it is just too easy to break something doing so... I dont even do it when I am taking someone elses apart, I take off the door panel
02-04-2008, 08:43 PM
#7
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Yeah, I have a set of torx sockets, so they came right out since I use a ratchet on them 
One other thing I forgot to add.. just as safe practice, leave the battery cable off for a good 15 - 20 min before taking the steering wheel apart. Airbags can deploy for a short while after the power is removed. They are much safer than they used to be, but always better safe than sorry.
One other thing I forgot to add.. just as safe practice, leave the battery cable off for a good 15 - 20 min before taking the steering wheel apart. Airbags can deploy for a short while after the power is removed. They are much safer than they used to be, but always better safe than sorry.
02-04-2008, 08:51 PM
#9
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Scikotics
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Its not really a button. It is an accelerometer that triggers when the car decellerates too quickly. And you are correct that by design, it should never go off any other way. However, there have been mechanics and thieves (yes, people steal airbags ) that have been severely injured while removing them in the past, so it is always good to be safe with them. I cant imagine how badly I would ruin my pants if one went off while I was holding it... not to mention the injury :D
) that have been severely injured while removing them in the past, so it is always good to be safe with them. I cant imagine how badly I would ruin my pants if one went off while I was holding it... not to mention the injury :D
02-05-2008, 05:54 PM
#12
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alright, i was thinking that when i did my write up i was gonna add typical times for teardown/ painting/ drying/ and re-installing for first timers.
Other than that you pretty much covered it, seeing as everyone should already know how to sand and paint...
Other than that you pretty much covered it, seeing as everyone should already know how to sand and paint...
02-08-2008, 05:07 PM
#19
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I didn't originally take mine out because I didn't know how. You might need to get under the dash first before to get them out, which I think was a little bit too much effort. In the end I'm glad I didnt do it though - it's easy to go overboard with this if you do to much.