How does the side Bird emblems come off on an 86 TC?(behind side glass) I tried to razor blade it off but it would not budge. Trunk emblems use two way tape. The side emblems seem to be bolted on. thanks in advance
John
there are studs on the back of those emblems that go through the quarter panel. The nuts can only be accessed from inside the car after you take out the plastic panels.
you'll have to fill the holes somehow or water will leak in there when it rains.Not a good thing.
I'm glad he asked that question. Now I know what I gotta do to get 'em off when I prep the blue one for paint. Very similar to the one on the grille, then, eh? Are the studs in the same place so that they're interchangeable with the grill?
I'll probably do all the trim removal, and gut the interior with the exception of the driver's seat, but I'm no painter. I can handle some of the body work to get it close, but then I gotta turn it over to the pros if I want it to look good. But, no point in paying for expensive labor to R&R trim parts. Same story goes for the two small fillers between the QP's and the roof, right? Wouldn't hurt my feelings to make sure that seam gets a good coat too.
I'll bet that you will drop at least 1 nut in the wheelwell on each side. It always happens. lol.
Oh man, I was taking coach lamps off a car in the JY and I dropped my friggin' Snap-On socket!! I guess I got lucky though, because there was so much insulation that I just reached in from a different spot and picked it up before it made it all the way down.
Whew! That would have really bothered me, losing a $15 socket to that POS. Especially for lamps that almost worked. But not quite.
I dropped a couple of the nuts taking mine off. However not too hard to retrieve since I have the interior gutted to begin with.
Oh yeah I did put pieces of duct tape on the inside of the holes in the quarter panel until I am ready to put the emblems back on.
I have the most wonderful tool for that. I have a nice speaker magnet with 2 inch diameter hole. Stick it to the sheet metal around what I'm taking off, and bingo, it grabs it. Frickin strong magnet too. Of course, that only works on ferrous (iron or steel) parts, but won't work well for stainless, and not at all for brass/aluminum.
Another good approach is to stuff something down in the side before starting so if a nut does get dropped, it bounces back out into the car. Wadded up newspaper works wonders for preventing things from going into places you don't want 'em to go. I keep bits of styrofoam packaging around just for such purposes. I'm always working on something that likes to steal and hide objects for eternity.
I learned some pretty good tricks building control panels with false backs in them.