I need to remove the air vent panel on my '86 Coupe so I can restore it. Any ideas on how to remove it?

Thanks!

Mark

 

Ok, brace yourself !

1. Remove the rear seat (two small bolts under the squab does the bottom, then the top has a couple of self tappers at the bottom, thenn a sharp shove upwards releases the top "hooks")
2. peel off the furfelt from the rear of the door jamb, the B pillar. Peel back the outer edge of the leather and find two or three small self tappers holding the card to the B pillar.
3. unbolt the fairlead for the seat belt from the pillar
4. unscrew the self tapper holding the rear of the armrest
5. an upwards clonk unhooks the arm rest, speaker etc from the window aperture, pull off the speaker leads and shove the armrest aside
6. remove the window by CAREFULLY prizing it out of the rubber.
7. remove the rubber
8. drill out the under window chrome trim securing pop rivets, these may well be rusted
9. remove the under window chrome strip
10. inside the boot up in the buttress, feel where the corner trim is secured and undo the tiny bolt holding it in place, remove the piece
11. drill out the pop rivets you will see holding the leading edge of the black trim to the C pillar under the rubber you have removed
12. CAREFULLY prize off the chrome trim that runs down the back edge of the black panel, it is just clipped over specially raised head rivets
13. now drill out the rivets you will find
14. pull off the black panel.

Under the black panel you will find an idiotically complex plastic flap unit arrangement, also pop riveted in. These flaps form one way air exit passages. After a bit the foam damping fails and they rattle infuriatingly. I stuck two of them closed and removed the third to make a permanent air exit. Absolutely fine.
While in there, you have pretty decent access to the cavity between the wheel arch and the outer panel. Strongly recommended to use a garden sprayer or an airgun of some sort, to blow rust killer and antirust stuff in here. It must be thin, I used AquaSteel, followed by wax. Some photos attached. Good luck

 

Thank you for the detailed info. Greatly appreciated!!

Mark

 

i'm going to be doing this in the next couple of months.
what are you using to replace the BLACK WHATEVER that stuff is?
mine had a peace torn off. it's awfull looking now.

 

I think it is some kind of vinyl but I'm not sure if that is correct. Once I get the panel off I will take a close look to determine the original material and find something as close to possible to it.

Mark

 

The black trim piece is thin aluminium with a very thin plastic/vinyl coating of some sort. I can see no reason why you could not recover it with something a bit thicker, or paint it with some suitable stuff.
Greg