I have not had very good fortune with these critters in the last couple
years. The fasteners invariably break or otherwise become useless and the
buggers are no longer available anywhere, at least not the OE ones. I made a
special tool out of a slightly bent-bladed heavy duty spatula kind of thing
(I unfortunately do not know what its original function was) which I ground
into a modified sort of asparagus fork with two flat prongs tapered to fit
under the edges of the fasteners. This allows them to be popped out with
minimal damage to the panel, but I won't go so far as to say no damage at
all. You may be looking for a nice piece of marine plywood or white-coated
masonite before the deed is done, not to mention some other type of
fastener. A body shop or body shop supplier will have something, or you can
keep a close eye out for clips used in other vehicles whose dealers haven't
abandoned them to their fates. Good luck!

Coby (by the way - if anyone knows where I can get the original clips and
will share that info with me, I'd love to hear from you!)

Valley Wagonworks
"Intimately acquainted with VW Vans since 1959"

Volkswagen Bus, Vanagon, Westfalia and Eurovan
Repair and Service Specialists

1535 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., San Anselmo, CA 94933
Voice:(415) 457-5628
Fax: (415) 457-0967
http://wagonworks.com
mailto:contact@wagonworks.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM]On Behalf
> Of Tom Young
> Sent: Monday, June 28, 1999 7:47 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Re: Interior panel removal/81 transporter
>
>
> John:
>
> You can remove these panels without screwing them up, if you're careful.
> As I recall, there's one screw toward the rear of the panel that needs
> to be removed first.  The panel is held on by plastic fasteners that can
> be popped out of their holes in the door.  Use a putty knife, maybe one of
> those plastic ones, to figure out where the fasteners are.  If you
> carefully pry on the panel, right near a fastener, they will usually pop
> out without damaging anything.
>
>
> On Mon, 28 Jun 1999, Brush, John wrote:
>
> > Has anyone had any experience with these panels that they could
> share, good
> > or bad? I don't even see a way to remove them that won't ruin
> them, so any
> > advice would be appreciated.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Tom Young               young@sherlock.SIMS.Berkeley.EDU
> Lafayette, CA  94549    '81 Vanagon
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>