Body Trim Buttons

[ZUBAJA]

Will do. Hope to get to it this weekend. Working on daughter's Forester right now (oil pan gasket, A/C repair, headlight). Wen I get that done, back to the Baja. Dennis

[ZUBAJA]

Here's the first picture with the plastic cover removed. When removing the bed trim, be very careful. It is usually sun baked and can crack easily. Later I'll show pictures of the repairs I made. The bracket is held to the body by 4 small bolts (8 MM heads). The second picture shows pencils pointing to the slots where the "buttons" go. The third picture shows the Tinnerman nuts in position. I had to notch the bracket to properly position the nuts

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Dennis

[20Baja06]

Just trying to give a little to the community. If anyone has a 3D printer and wants to give these a try, feel free to let us know how they work out. Otherwise, I’ll get around to it one of these days as more disposable income comes my way.

Features cam-like retaining features to (hopefully) keep the button in place. Insert button with screwdriver slot in vertical orientation. With a screwdriver, lightly press inwards and turn either clockwise or counterclockwise 90 degrees until the slot is horizontal.

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The .stl file is in the .zip folder.

Clip Trial.zip

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[greymud]

Thanks, Dennis!

[Thwipp]

going to try these today, will report back. thanks.

[20Baja06]

I was able to get one of these body clips printed. End result is surprisingly good. I had concerns that it might be too loose holding everything together but that proved not to be the case as it wasn’t the easiest thing to install - it’s very snug, which is good!

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I first tried installing with a small screwdriver that fit the slot and that didn’t work well as it started twisting the material. I was able start turning it with a paint scraper but ended up peeling some of the bed trim. Looking through the ol’ toolbox, found a tool that worked well enough and was able to install. Because it was so snug, I really thought it would break so I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to remove it and reinstall it again without it breaking. I would call that a major success! I took an install and removal video but I’m not sure how to add them here yet and I’d rather not go through YouTube. Anyway, here’s pics of the clip being installed.

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Hopefully nobody steals the design and starts trying to sell these. Just remember you all saw it here first!