Painting Body Moldings

Hey, I was reading the Teg Tip on how to paint my black molding surrounding my car. Was wondering, to make it safer and easier on myself, how hard would it be to remove the moldings from the car to paint? I know that on some cars it just snaps off and on others it is glued there. Have any of you attempted to remove the moldings, and how was the experience?

The moldings are held in by clips. I would definitely suggest that you remove the moldings before painting them, you’ll get better results that way.

I was able to remove my moldings by “pinching” the clips from the inside. So first you have to gain access to the clips. this means removing door/side panels and the inner fender lining… once you see the clips you can use pliers to “pinch” them in so that the moldings can be pulled away from the car.

The frontmost moldings with “DOHC” are fairly easy to remove. The door moldings are a different story altogether. I was able to remove all four door moldings (I have a sedan) but only after some tedious effort. It’s easier if you remove the door panels first, but I did it the hard way using only some old fashion dexterity. Like Colin said, the moldings are held in place by clips on the inside of the doors. There is also a nut that is on the end of each molding that you have to unscrew and remove to get the entire molding off, on the sedans two of these are on the inside of the door which makes it really difficult to remove if you don’t remove the door panel first. I have pics of when I removed mine, I’ll post them when I dig them up. It’s a pain if you don’t remove the door panels as you have limited access to the insides of the doors. If you have a Helms manual read the Body>Doors chapter if you want to tear out the panels first before getting at the molding clips.

AUTOBODY TIP

TAKE 2 spot putty knifes

1 from top one from bottom
go directly on/under the clip and sqeeze and pull toward you

easy as fuck,

tegster: yeah, i forgot to mention that nut. For the coupes there is one nut for each door molding, and it is accessable w/o taking the door panel off.

soon2be: Interesting tip, I assume since you said its easy, that you’ve actually tried it? I can’t imagine my moldings being loose enough to fit a spot putty knife between the molding and the door panel… but I guess I didn’t try it so I wouldn’t know for sure.

Colin, thanks for the tip. I will try. Fortunatley I have a sedan so I don’t have to worry about the nut. Also, what’s the deal with the moldings around the bumpers? Are they Painted on the car or does it come off???

yup i did it and the tip came directly from a painter

the moldings are not tight
the edges are soft rubber so the putty knief can go in(dooR)
the rear+dohc moldings have no soft rubber on the ends but u just gotta be carfull and get behind it…(easy)

ill try to make a vid

ps…IF the clip breaks or is already broken this tip might not work…
if thats the case
you gotta get the door panels out to get it from the inside:)

anybody mentioned the front/rear molding ? it seems to be stuked to the bumpers

its the acutal bumper
no way of taking it out