Date:         Wed, 18 Aug 1999 01:28:29 -0500
Reply-To:     Marshall Ruskin <mruskin@PANGEA.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Marshall Ruskin <mruskin@PANGEA.CA>
Subject:      Excellent Info on Interior Trim removal etc
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi Westies:

Mr. Joel Walker provided this excellent information to me regarding the
removal of interior trim parts and door handles. With his permission, I am
posting it to the list, for the general welfare for Westies, and their
owners, everywhere!

Marshall Ruskin
84 Westy, air, auto

 Simple thing: my exterior door handles need tightening.

 That means I've got to take off the items you mentioned in
 your post (interior panel, crank, door latch, armrest), Right?.

nope. better than that. :) exterior door handles are held on by one large
phillips screw. this screw is hidden, behind the rubber gasket that goes
around the front door. to find it, you pull on the rubber gasket, or just
kinda push it out of the way (toward the body, with the door open) right at
the level of the outside handle. there's the big screw. if you take that
out, the handle can be lifted right off the door. tighten it up, and the
handle no longer wiggles when you grab it. :) put some Lock-Tite on the
screw before you tighten it up, and you won't have to tighten it next year.
:)

 1. To take off window crank, do I need a special tool to
 remove a c-clip like on other cars?

no. you need only a wide-blade flat-blade screwdriver. that black plastic
(or brown, if your interior is brown) on the window crank lifts off at the
big round end (that is on the door panel). it's about 1/16" (hmmm... about
2mm) thick, so you stick the wide blade juuuuuuust under the edge of the big
round part of the crank handle and pry up. it'll pop off (still attached at
the crank knob end) and you can see the phillips screw in the middle of the
metal part (of the crank handle) that was hidden by the plastic. unscrew
that and the handle can be wiggled off. it's a spline-fit so don't wiggle
hard, just often. and watch out that you do NOT loose the little
funny-looking washer under the screw ...it's a sort of lock-washer.

 2. To remove door panel, Bentley isn't helpful. I can see,
 looking in the side of the door, two plastic clips. Obviously there are
 more. What is the best way to remove the panel?

best to start at the rear bottom of the door, where that black plastic
vent/slide thingie is. remove the two screws holding the vent/slide thingie
to the door (one of them screws is hard to see, but it's there). it
pulls/wiggles out to the rear, not sideways (toward you). getting it back in
is a trick ... you have to push it back on, then tuck the panel fabric kinda
under the leading edge ... it won't go back on without some help.
ok, now you've got it off and you have sort of a 'hole' there in the
attachment of the panel to the door itself. what i do is stick my hand
(flattened) under the panel at this 'hole', and slide it under the panel. go
easy and slowly. you'll feel the pressure of the snaps as you get closer.
then as you continue to move your handle (more pressure), the snap just pops
out. go in either direction as you choose, but i find it easier to go along
the bottom of the door first.

there is a special tool for this .... it looks like a screwdriver,
flat-wide-blade, but with a slot cut in the blade, so it looks like a Y. the
snaps are little plastic doohickies that when viewed one way look like a T,
but when viewed 90 degrees to that (sideways) look like a sort of V with a
cap on it. you have to slide the Y-screwdriver in on the T side (skinny
side) and pry up carefully. otherwise you break the plastic and those things
are a bitch to replace.

 3. Interior door latch - basically just remove visible
 screws and work the plastic off? Any special watch-out-fors?

uh, yeah ... cept you can't SEE the screw that you need to remove! :) ok,
under the door latch, there is a black plastic 'cup'-thingie. it's held in
place by a snap/pressure fit. at the end of the latch, away from the hinge
of the pull-thingie, there is a small slot-kinda thing, just at the edge of
the 'cup' (the hole where you put your finger when you pull on the latch
pull-thingie). with a flat-blade screwdriver, gently pry in this slot,
toward the hinge end. the whole plastic cup-thingie will pop out (from under
the hinge-thingie). and presto, you can see the one screw that holds the
thing to the door metal. take that out, and the thing comes off and you can
finish removing the panel. notice that the hinge-end of the pull-thingie
stays attached to the door, and all you really removed was the black plastic
surrounding it, sort of the trim piece. but unless you take that off, you
ain't getting the panel off the door. :)

(Boy - isn't Joel a great asset to us all! I can't thank him enough! M.R)