TA22 sill trim installation

[ta22fan]

During that latter part of my recent TA22 resto project I was faced with the issue of re-installing the sill (or under-door) chrome trim. The original plastic clips required to fix these to the sills are almost impossible to find, and you'll rarely be able to keep them intact when you remove the trim. Looks like many TA22 owners are not too bothered whether they have these trims installed or not, but I think they do add something to the look of the car - particularly if you are after a close-to-original look. What info I could find suggested that in recent times this trim is generally fixed on with screws (not a particular elegant solution) or with large amounts of sealant/adhesive. I was not really happy with either approach, so came up with the following solution. This is not a perfect alternative to the proper clips – more like 80%, but gives a petty Ok result that you won't pick unless you look very closely, does not damage the trim, and allows for very easy removal if needed at a later time if needed.

Probably not something that many will be all that interested in, but figured I'd post if here “for the record” in case it is useful for someone else eventually.

So here's the what you need:

Six packs of these:

1.JPG ("Champion" 2 x X'Mas Tree Clips P/NO PP31)

They come in black and grey – obviously does not matter what you can find.

With a Stanley knife, trim a few mm's off two sides of each plug like this:

2.JPG

Don't trim too much off – cutting these bits off is basically just a time saver – see next step.

Using some 60-grit sand paper or 60-grit wet-and-dry – sand the trimmed plug so that it fits snugly into the trim. Best approach is to sand it a bit, then check for fit, then sand again until it fits just nice.

End result is this:

3.JPG

Best if you sand it so that it is slightly angled (narrower on the top face of the plug). When you fit the modified plug into the trim, you'll see what I mean.

You'll need to trim the stalk off each plug at around 1cm. For the one at the rear of the trim – it'll need to be even a bit shorter than that (gap between sill and main body is only a few mm's).

After the first one or two – you'll blast through the rest in quick time. You then finish up with 12 modified plugs (six per trim). Fitted – looks like this:

4.JPG

The trim should have a metal clip (probably rusty) fixed to the rear - the plug that sits behind this (you can see it on the previous photo) will need to be trimmed on one side with your Stanley knife so that with the plug sitting hard up against the metal clip you can position the trim correctly on the sill with that plug over the rear-most drill hole. Best approach is trim a few mm's, fit the plug, check the trim positioning on the sill, and then trim a bit more if needed. This sounds complicated, but when you actually get to this point, it's very obvious what you need to do.

You are then ready to fit the trim to the car. If things are pretty straight (car and trim), your should get a pretty good result. If need be, add a bit of sealant/adhesive where needed to fix things neatly in place.

Here's my end result:

5.JPG

[stidnam]

Nice work. You can buy the factory clips if you look hard enough but most sill trim these days seem to be already drilled and screwed on

[75Ta22LT]

Full credit for ingenuity!

My 75 had never been butchered, was completely original, untill I got it lol!

Only recently pulled the sill trim off, it is definitely going back on after paint.

So if you where wondering if this helps anyone - it already has!