How to remove door sills?

[TR7Aaron]

Hi all,
After several months of setbacks (job & medical problems, etc.), I've started back to work on my 80 TR7 by slowly disassembling and marking all parts. Here's one that has me stumped: How are the plastic door sills removed? They have these plastic nut/retainers and I started prying with a small screwdriver but it looked it would snap off before it released. What's the secret?
Thanks in advance.
Aaron

Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it.

[Hasbeen]

Aaron, there is a small pin, in the middle of those retainers.
For instillation, these pins are pushed down into the retainer,
spreading the base, a bit like a rivet.

Knock those small pins right through, into the sils, & the retainers
will lift out. Fetch the pins for reuse.

Hope that makes sense.

Hasbeen

[TR7Aaron]

It made perfect sense and solved that problem but created another. The pins fell into the rocker panel section and I cannot get them out so, I guess I'll need to buy some replacements when I reassemble the car.
I'm surprised that Triumph designed it that way. Should I be?
I was hoping that I would have some access to the inside of the rocker panel section since my driver's side has some dents and I wanted to push them out from the backside.
Aaron

Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it.

[Hasbeen]

There must be a couple of holes somewhere under the carpet.

I remember getting mine out with a bit of plastic tube, attached to
the vacume cleaner. I had it set up up to clean that area out.

I can't remember too much about it, as it was 6 years ago, but I did
get them. New retainers are available.

Hasbeen

[TR7Aaron]

Yes, there are some small holes and I hadn't thought of the vacuum cleaner trick - I'll give that a try. Any suggestions on how to remove some rocker panel dents? I've toyed with the idea of cutting some access slots in the area under the door sill, bumping out the dents from there (unless there's more steel in-between the sill and the rocker bottom), then welding up the slot. Neatness wouldn't be all that important since the welded area would be covered. It would also give me an opportunity to do some rustproofing in that area.
Aaron





Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it.

[Rblackadar]

Those pins are actually quite common in todays cars. My Audi has them all over the place. My fiances Saturn has them on all of her splash pans.

[FI Spyder]

There is a process called paintless dent repair. A club member got some dents taken out of the door in his RAV4. He said they drilled some holes in the side of door (you already have the holes pre existing.) They got in with their tools and tapped out the dents. No painting. Cost him $186.00. As good as new. He highly recommended them. Might be the ticket for hard to get at dent repairs, save you a lot of bother. As with anything might be as good as the skill of the person doing it. Google "paintless dent repair."

TR7 Spider - 1978 Spifire - 1976 Spitfire - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra

[Hasbeen]

Aaron, if your dents are too big for FI Spyder's method you could
try the system my bloke uses for bad blind dents.

He drills one or more of small holes, & screws one, or a couple of
self tapping screws in there. He then uses a slide hammer to pull
the dents out.

With bad dents he will weld the self tappers in to allow harder
pulling. It works well.

Hasbeen

[Cobber]

<font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="2">That's the same way as I do it too Hasbeen.</font id="size2"></font id="Comic Sans MS">

80'Triumph TR7, 74'Jaguar XJ12 , 73'Land Rover (Ford 351. V8),
'89 Ford Fairlane
85'Alfa 90, 69'Ford F250.
76' Ford F100
I sold the '61 International AA120 to a mate.. he hasn't paid for it yet!
The Volvo 760 and one of the alfa 90's have passed on RIP! (Rust in Pieces!)

[bmcecosse]

You could try suction cups first - no holes !

[cliff]

Aaron, Depending on finances a stud welding kit is an option for pulling dents. Leaves no holes for corrosion/rust to start or possible water intrusion. You zap the pulling studs onto the sheetmetal, pull to desired level, then twist off the stud and grind smooth and glaze with filler and finish with topcoat. To find a stud welding kit, just <b>Google</b> stud welding kit, there are several available on both sides of the pond....
Cliff