Removing side body kit attachments

[Olly]

I have a 1988 Caravelle Magnum which has a full VW body kit. I've recently bought it, and I took off the side kit today to clean the crud off the botttom of the body panels, with a view to leaving it off for good. The attachments on which the kit is fixed to however is rivited on to the body work.

Does anyone know how I can remove these without spoiling otherwise pristine bodywork?

I'm guessing it's going to be prising them off and filling? Don't really want to leave them on because they look a bit silly.

Thanks

[Fritz]

Simply drill the heads off the rivetts, if you want to do this without causing too much damage to the plastic mounts use a 'spot weld ' drill and don't push to hard when drilling.


Regards

Fritz,,,,,,,,,,

[R0B]

carefully drill the rivet heads off.pull the brackets off.then push the remaining bit of rivet to the inside.you will be left with holes though..

[R0B]

must type faster...

[Titus A Duxass]

Do it carefully as described above.
Keep all parts, they are worth money.

[BenT]

I know it soudns crude and possibly damaging to the bodywork but I have often removed them my placing a sharp putty knife and smacking with a rubber mallet. My apologies if I am not using the right name for that tool.

Done this operation dozens of times and have never damaged the bodywork yet. On parts vans, I don't even bother removing the cladding off the brackets first.

YRMV,

[Olly]

Thanks everyone. Not sure whether to take them off now, took the kit off and found rust at the seams, so needs some treatment anyway. I figured that the kit maybe protects bottom of the van a bit from the elements, but at the same time it might just be making it worse by collecting dirt. Don't want to leave holes in the panel and then have to have loads of patching done though, so probably just clean up what's there and leave it on.