Interior Removal

With the steering box unbolted (but unable to remove due to the steering column), I figured it was time to get to work on the interior.

Ironically as I was removing seats, carpet, etc., from the interior I thought to myself "ah, all done taking all the junk out the interior."

Not so!

To remove everything from the interior, for paint and such, is a lot more work than I previously thought.  First of all, you have all the seam sealer.  There is a ton of it, but a Harbor Freight Multi-Tool makes extremely quick work of it, and a scraper gets the rest.  Then it's on to the window side of things.  First, remove the windlace along the door jamb, which is holding the rear quarter panel trim to the jamb.  Next, the the screws holding on the rear quarter panel trim.  Then off comes the quarter-window crank (a small Allen wrench is used).  Once the crank slides off, the panel trim comes off.  Underneath, you (should) have a large piece of thin cardboard-type material, which is held to the body by spots of some adhesive (glue-like-putty stuff?).

Carefully remove the cardboard stuff, which will likely tear anyway, and start removing the 4 screws that hold the scissor-jack assembly in (mine was already disconnected from the quarter window...that explains why it never worked).  Through some Houdini-effort, I was finally able to pull this assembly through the access hole.  All that remains now is the structural pieces inside the quarter-panel, and the quarter window itself. I'll have to look in my shop manual to see how these are removed. 

The rear quarter panel trim has a distinct vinyl-stamped texture in it, and is not reproduced.  I'll be stripping the paint off of these, epoxy priming, and re-painting another day.  Speaking of that, check back soon for an update on the painting mess :-) .

So that's one side.  Now I've just got to get to the other.  And 100 other things... sigh.