Pajero Owners Club of South Africa

Hi there

Does anybody have any experience on their "silver side panels", i have a 2000 3.2 Did model LWB coming loose. The back door can't open now unless I open the front door. I believe it is a special double sided tape to fix it again. I assume this is normal maintenance for an "oldish" type vehicle. The rear panels are also beginning to come loose... Not sure if i can do it myself or need to take it to a panelbeater place to get it done. Planning to visit Kgalagadi shortley and the last thing you want their is that these panels comes loose.....

Adriaan

My panels have a couple of different clips and rivets which I do not think is standard. When I bought the vehicle second hand the silver panels were all resprayed and I assume the spraypainters refitted them this way, so far they hold up reasonably well. When I had a look it seemed reasonably easy to revit or screw them back in place but have not done this myself.

CATS

Adriaan

I saw this post then forgot to reply..

I have personally taken off all my plastic panels, sanded them down and resprayed them with the standard two coat paint used on cars (primer, base coat and clear coat).

Don't waste the bucks with a panelbeater.

The panels are held in place by plastic clips and double sided tape. You will find that you will have to cut the double sided tape (fishing line works best for this) around the edges of the panel. Then (if I remember correctly) you will need to carefully pull the front of the panel free. Then push the panel away from the side you have pulled free i.e backwards. This will leave the white clips in the bodywork. If you pull the clips away from the bodywork you risk breaking the mounts in the panel, orthe clips (R5 a pop from the dealers)

The double sided tape is 3M tape which is available from car trip supply places. It is grey in colour with a red backing, and about 1.5mm thick. Do not try get anything any thinner.

Make sure you have cleaned ALL the double sided tape off both the panel and the bodywork. I find benzine and the previously mentioned fishing line works well (or even a piece of split bamboo, which turns out to be very sharp, but not hard enough to scratch the paint. Make sure the bodywork and panel is ABSOLUTELY clean before you stick the double sided tape on. I also found that installing the panel when the bodywork is hot (in the direct sun) makes the tape stick better.

Hope this helps

Thanks

I also took a friend to help me.
It appears the previous owner did not use the right 3m tape(a bit expensive, but still a small price)....and some of the clips were broken and in some the place where the clips had to slide in was torn It is a time consuming job to get it all cleaned etc etc. The side panels are now all ok, now it is just the rear bumper. Thanks for the feedback and how to take it off. That was the trickey part to figure out as well.

For now not that badly scratched, but that is the beauty of it, at some point you can take it of, respray it and remount it again.

The bigest challenge why i had to do it is that the back door could not open any more if i do not open the front door.