Does anyone know were to find a tool to remove the reversed sheetmetal nuts that hold the top sil plate onto the door panel? i really need to figure out how without destroying the sil plate and the little plastic studs on it ...

 

I just use needle nose pliers, put the tips of the pliers inside the nuts and pull the handles out to expand and catch the shoulders, they aren't usually very tight on there anyway. Sure an odd ball setup there.

 

This is what I did too. At least to get them started, when they were up a little I grabbed between the inside recess and the outer edge with the pliers and rotated them off the rest of the way.

 

ya ,thats what i did too but i busted two of the little pegs on the first one i tried (the old ones) i'd really like to find a better way in my good ones...thanks guys.

 

I just did mine actually and I used a flat head screwdriver to get them up out of the cardborad a little ( this did require just a hint of bending on the nut part but it didn't effect them) Then I used vise grips to grip the outside of the nut, locked em down and twisted away. real quick and easy

To get the things that hold the panel into the door, those plastic ones, don't worry if you break em, you can buy replacement ones at the suto stroe, but you just pull up and twist. theres a little notch and if you pull them up and twist the notch will slide over the board and out it comes

 

Well I was gonna ask about this too, but I searched 1st and found this post. Sounds like there isn't any ez way to do it. I already tried the needle nose pliers trick, but I couldn't turn them. And I broke a plastic stud trying to grip/bend the side of the nut.

I did come up w/ an idea that works though (well kinda)... I found that a 9mm or 11/32 nut fits snugly inside the sheet metal nut. So I drilled out the center of a 9mm nut so it would fit over the plastic stud and dropped it in the sheet metal nut. I took a 9mm box wrench and started turning the 9mm nut, but it kept jumping out. So I got a 6mm socket (becuz it fit inside the 9mm wrench) and used that to push down the 9mm nut to hold it inside the sheet metal nut. It worked pretty well -- I removed 5 of them in about 2 mins w/out breaking anything. Unfortunately, the 9mm nut wasn't very thick, so it doesn't stick out of the sheet metal nut very far. U don't get much to grab on w/ the box wrench... I ended up rounding the top corners of the nut before I was able to finish.

I went to a hardware store that specializes in rare nuts and bolts, but even they didn't have a nut that size that was thicker. So I plan on welding 2 of them together so I'll have something to grab w/ the wrench.

 

i was just talking to a MATCO tool dealer yesterday about this and he said that he has had a lot of body and interior guys ask about such a tool. he said he knows of nothing around that is made for this, but he suggested using a 3/8 drive allen-head socket and then using a drill press to bore a hole in the center. this is so far the best idea i,ve heard,a lot of effort but it beats breaking the tabs off. as a footnote, he added that you would want to use as cheap of quality allen as possable as the low amount of carbon found in a cheap tool would likely make it softer,and easier to drill the hole in.mine are already done but hope this helps someone...

 

they sell allen sockets that are drilled out already. they are used for security screws like this. i just use the needle nose pliers since i never had a problem with it but my friend who works for a ford dealership has a set of allan, torx security bits. thats where i seen them from

 

Yeah I thought about that, but it seemed like more $$ and effort... I don't have ez access to a drill press, and drilling hardened steel isn't much fun.

Anyway, I welded the nuts together this weekend... it worked pretty well, even though I'm just learning how to weld and pretty much suck at it. If u don't have access to a welder, u might even be able to get away w/ super-gluing 2 nuts together... u really don't need that much torque. And make sure u lube it up a bit... it will make it a lot ezr.

BTW, welding the nuts, grinding the welds down, taking the door panel apart, and putting it back togehter took about 20 mins... faster than a trip to the tool store!