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Elite Veteran
Posts: 782
  
Location: Edmonton, Alberta | Hi All:
The hood is coming off the car this weekend. I'm also going to paint the inner side of the hood my version of equishene (matched to my trunk). I've pretty much got most of the trim and disassembly under control, but I stopped tonight at the Plymouth lettering on my hood. Each letter is held in by a little clip.
These...... look delicate.
Rather than "animal" the clips off, I thought I'd post here before I get "torquey" with the closest flat blade screwdriver.
Any tips and suggestions? I really want to be careful with these clips as I don't want to break them. I imagine finding these clips won't be that that much fun to find if I wreck 'em.
Gord |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 594
Location: Melbourne, Australia | 15 years ago, i think I used an awl like pointy tool and picked the clips off from behind. Clips were quite sturdy spring steel; diescast pins less so.... fiddly but none broken... took a good 30 minutes Colin |
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Expert
Posts: 4075
Location: Connecticut | You may want to use a small pair of needle nose pliers and 'unscrew' them from the pins. Be careful that you don't snap the pins from the letters. Squirting them with WD-40 may be helpful. Ron |
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Exner Expert 19,174 posts. Neil passed away 18 Sep 2015. You will be missed, Neil!
Posts: 19146
Location: bishop, ca | A pair of small-ish bent-leg' vice grips will let you access the "speed nuts" from their sides, with you getting more of a flat grip against them, as you gently try to twist
them off of the mounting pins.
You'll probably end up twisting off several (how many letters in "Plymouth??) of the mounting pins' ends, but enough of the pins' length will survive, so that they can be glued back into their
mounting holes' locations (relatively invisibly).
For sure you'll need to apply a few drops of 3-in-1 oil to the speed nuts, but, again, the good news is, if/when you break off a few of the mounting pins,
the entire remnant(s) can very simply be glued back onto the hoods and deck lids by using the remaining speed nut/pin piece as a base for the glue
to hold the letter against the metal panel, securely.
Edited by d500neil 2014-12-04 12:54 PM
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 7812
Location: Williams California | The only way you can remove these clips is to gently spread the openings where the pins go through. I do this with a tiny flat blade screwdriver, insert the blade lengthways, then slightly turn to spread the jaws of the clip. Do this to both pins, and the clip will fall off. They can then be reused by tapping the jaws back slightly with a small mallet. Any other removal method will result in pin breakage, or snapping the retaining clip.
---John |
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Exner Expert 19,174 posts. Neil passed away 18 Sep 2015. You will be missed, Neil!
Posts: 19146
Location: bishop, ca | And, when replacing a non-damaged mounting speed nut to a body panel, the pins' tightness against the body panel is not very critical, loose-is-good, for
future removal of them, because the pins' bases can be easily glued back against the body panels, to hold them tightly to the body panel.
Edited by d500neil 2014-12-04 1:13 PM
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Location: The Mile High City | If you have a Black and Decker Wizard or a Dremel, you can use a cutting disk to cut the clips apart. That's worked well for me. |
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Expert
Posts: 4075
Location: Connecticut | Neil - These aren't speed nuts, but flat-ish pieces of thin gauge metal with an 'H' configuration cut in the middle. They are installed by pressing the metal piece over the pin at the center of the 'H'. A real pain to remove, but with John's method you probably stand the best chance of retaining the metal piece for future use. Ron |
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Expert 5K+
Posts: 7812
Location: Williams California | The '57 hood letters each have two mounting pins, therefore the clips can't be unscrewed like some others, Ron. |
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Exner Expert 19,174 posts. Neil passed away 18 Sep 2015. You will be missed, Neil!
Posts: 19146
Location: bishop, ca | Yeah, Ron, thanks....that's what I was trying to 'verbalize....the backing "H" clips can be carefully "un-screwed" but there is the distinct possibility/probability of destroying a mounting pin
assembly during that operation.
But, again, a broken pin-piece can be glued/epoxied onto the body-panel, via the mounting-hole area, virtually invisibly and...relatively permanently.
Edited by d500neil 2014-12-04 9:41 PM
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P-L-Y-M-O-U-T-H Lettering on 1957 Hood
