Hatch Interior Panel

[Son_of_Z]

Interior panel attachment for hatch on early 240s

The holes in the hatch (6) for the plastic interior attachment rivets are too small. This makes the rivets difficult to install and remove without undue aggravation and possible collateral damage to valuable parts. I use a razor blade and carefully slice off one of the four plastic fingers on the backside of the rivet. They still attach tight and are removed easily. Additionally I reuse them instead of damaging them beyond usefulness.

Good Luck

[mperdue]

If you just push out the center "pin" on the rivets they should come right out. Did you try that first? I didn't have any problem getting mine out. Now finding all of those little pins that fall back behind the panels is a different story...

Michael

[Doehring]

mperdue,

you are so right. Searching these bloody pins ... . My first improvement was to use an emptied vacuum cleaner. For reuse of the clips I now take matches ,cut them to size and colour them finally at the end.

Rolf

[Son_of_Z]

I do push out the center pin first. However, the holes in the hatch (not the interior panel ) have been drilled to a smaller diameter than the plastic panels. This makes inserting and extracting the river body a frustrating job. The hatch is the only place on my car that I have this problem. I might have a defective hatch.

[EScanlon]

Your hatch may have been replaced with a later year hatch. The hatch cover plate was later attached with screws that could either go straight into the metal or go into those square plastic receivers for the screws. For a while there they were also using a smaller diameter push pin rivet.

I found a quick way of retrieving the rivet pins.

I attached an "appropriated" (i.e. stolen) nylon knee high stocking to the end of my shop-vac's hose with duct tape, then the vac is turned on and the knee high is sucked into the hose. Then I duct tape a 5/8" inside diameter rubber hose, about 2 feet long, to the end of the vac hose. This in effect gives me a filter screen midway up the shop vac hose. The 5/8" hose gives me a flexible smaller diameter vacuum nozzle. Then insert the rubber hose into the nooks and crannies behind the panel after I've pushed the pins through. Rarely do I loose pins.

By the way, the first time you do this, be prepared to find all sorts of crud behind your plastic panels. This is an area that will collect all sorts of BS, and should probably be vacuumed more than once every 30 years.

2¢

[jharvat]

Interior panel attachment for hatch on early 240s

The holes in the hatch (6) for the plastic interior attachment rivets are too small. This makes the rivets difficult to install and remove without undue aggravation and possible collateral damage to valuable parts. I use a razor blade and carefully slice off one of the four plastic fingers on the backside of the rivet. They still attach tight and are removed easily. Additionally I reuse them instead of damaging them beyond usefulness.

Good Luck

I know this is an absolutely ancient post but finding it was absolute magic for my blood pressure.

[psdenno]

Since you bring up the subject........

When I reinstall the plastic rivets, I use a cotter pin instead of the original plastic pin that generally disappears into some dark crevasse. They are especially good in areas where the rivets are behind deck carpet or otherwise not noticeable. An added advantage of using cotter pins is that they can be pulled out of the rivet instead of pushed in.

Dennis