Wow, this was harder than I thought it would be. Thankfully, I am doing
this in the comfort of my laundry room.
The 8 pop rivets holding the 4 plastic covers on the ceiling are THE
most difficult pop rivets I have ever removed. The final method to do it
was ugly, but effective. Using a cutoff wheel, I Dremeled a grid on the
cap of the pop rivet, a lot. This effectively weakened it so I could
bend it upward. Careful consideration was made to not etch into the
plastic underneath. After the cutting was done, I could scrape off the
cap til there was no more. THen you push it through all the way.
Sadly, one pop rivet is still hanging on. Okay, a ring of it is STILL
embedded inside the lever. Any hints on how to remove this? Looks like I
might need to take a trip back to the garage to find a super-tiny
needle file.
Add to the fact one of the screws was not wanting to be unscrewed out. I
had to cut it off. These screws holding together the ragtop almost
seemed like they were designed to be flathead-screwdriver resistant. You
could barely get a decent-sized screwdriver in the slot, and then it
fights back by just freely rotating, with a nut i have yet to see a tool
be able to remove. I guess I could cut a notch in a gasket scraper or
something.
Then ahead of me is the task of getting those smaller pop-rivets out of
the headliner for a much needed repainting.
And already, despite how many notes I took, forgot the orientation of
the middle horizontal rail. Ugh.
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