With the removal of the interior trim panels and other miscellaneous components I finally made my way to the twin rear doors. For unknown reasons I was unable to open the rear doors even with the key. I figured that if I could remove the interior panels on the doors I could reach inside and work the linkages to open the doors that way. The panels on these two doors were actually two parts, with the plastic trim panel that covers the outer edges of the door and around the window while the main section of the door (where the linkages are) is covered by an upholstery panel that's separate. After removing the plastic panel, the middle panel was easily pulled off. With the internals of the door exposed I was able to work the linkages and get the right door open. The left door was actually fine, as I was able to open it like normal. I continued around, removing pieces of the right rear section of interior trim. The panel on the right side is actually two pieces unlike the left side which was one piece. This is due to the sliding door and the panel covering just the door section. The rear most panel came off separately. The arm rests and other small panels came off first, then the trim panel. I also removed the panel next to the door holding the speaker. As an extra, I pulled the speakers from the rear doors, adding all three speakers to the batch of speakers in the storage trailer. With the panels removed, it was time for another cleanup of all the panels and pieces that were disassembled. Other things like the myriad bolts and screws were gathered up as well. I won't be able to remove the intermediate panel around the sliding door until I survey how the door goes together. I do want to remove the door, even temporarily, to facilitate an easy removal of the shell from the frame. Worst case will have to cut the panel where it wraps around the top of the slide. Either way I will remove the upholstery panel from the sliding door in order to reach the linkage to open that door. Even with me keeping the door, the upholstery needs to come off since upholstery will do nothing but catch odors and end up being disgusting after a while with dogs bouncing around inside. I really want to wrap up the chop of this van since I need to sort through the parts I removed in order to get those smaller parts listed on EBay while sorting through the larger parts that would be listed on FB Marketplace. Whatever is left would be scrapped of disposed of. I would definitely want to part with the larger and more sensitive stuff like the seats since letting these things get rained on continuously, or even sit under cover in the moist outdoors will eventually compromise these items. Once I get the sliding door taken care of the last things to address are the removal of the rear HVAC box and the body bolts holding the shell to the frame. I do want to try and remove the rear doors but if the hinges are like the front doors, I'll have to leave them be as I don't want to destroy the hinges trying to remove the doors. The rear bumper will come off as well but since its attached to the frame, is not necessary to remove in order to pull the body from the frame.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
May 2023
|