June 2012: Taking the Interior Apart (Day 1)

Unfortunately I did not any work done on the car during May because I stayed in Chicago longer and I was spending my time studying for the LSAT (I didn't take it in the end, I need more practice before I take the real one). I picked the car up from Fords Only because I was planning on doing the body work while I was in school.

When June rolled around, I decided that I should begin taking the car apart so when I DO turn it over to the body shop I can save some money. Great! But where do I start??

I went back to my friend Gerry to ask for some guidance. He told me that I should take off some the exterior trim but not the bumpers. I am legally required to keep them on. Before I knew it we were taking some exterior parts off the car... probably because I was asking too many questions.
We took off the rear bumper to get access to some of the rear trim pieces.

After I took this photo, Gerry pulled out a can of black spray paint and hit all the red parts. It looked a lot better when it was all one color.

We tried taking out the radio antenna out but to no avail. Meanwhile, I'm still finding pine needles!!


I then asked where do I begin when I want to take apart the interior. He told me to work from the top down (roof to carpet). He told me to be sure to bag all the little screws that come out of these interior panels, so I can keep track of them and probably reuse them.

One piece that really concerned me was how do I take out the back seat. Turns out it was easier for us to take it out than have him explain it to me. It was tougher than I thought but we got it done (and without breaking anything!!)

Really productive day especially since I only planned on asking questions. I was so pumped that I decided that I would spend the rest of the next day taking the rest of the interior apart.