Removing the Cabrio Roof Interior Trim?

[The Rigger]

So I had a devil of a time trying to loosen up the header trim in my Cabrio, trying to run a power cable for my V1 up near the dome light... Took out all the visor screws, but couldn't get them out of the windshield header trim.

What's the secret? Do I really have to sacrifice a chicken at midnight to get the boody trim panel off?

[John_H]

There are two clips in the middle toward the front, roughly centered in front of the driver and passenger seats that are on the trim pointing back toward the cabin that go into metal clips in the windshield frame. These clips are kind of at odds with the edges of the trim and how they fit in around the windshield pillars. The trip needs to be pushed forward - perhaps an inch - to disengage these clips.

(This all comes from memory, about 4 months back)

When I got my trim back on after performing the desired task, I found the trim wasn't flat against the windshield but bowed slightly at the front around where the clips went into the metal slots. Perhaps that's normal, perhaps that's not, but the slight misalignment isn't noticeable since the frit around the edge of the windshield masks most of that front surface.

It's a bear to get back together once it's off. You might be better served nudging the wire in at the edges so the wire sits just inside the lip of the trim.

[The Rigger]

What's the secret to dropping the visors? I pulled the screws out, but the suckers did not want to let go of the header trim for love or money.

The V1 uses a flat RJ11-type cable... Maybe I can just stuff it up under the edge of the header trim... But not pulling the header trim means not being able to pull the A-pillar trim, and I don't see any easy way (or moderately difficult way either, for that matter) to work the wire behind that piece without loosening it up.

[John_H]

My bluetooth microphone cable is an easy slide in the A-pillar edge against the windshield.

The visors are giving you trouble? That really is odd. Two torx screws at the hinge, one at the clip, and the visor pretty much falls out in my cabrio.

[The Rigger]

The visors in my car had little clip protrusions that snapped into the edges of the holes in the header trim. I had to give 'em one helluva yank to get 'em to pop out...

FWIW, I did the dastardly deed today; finally got the visors out & dropped only one side of the header. I think I may just have been using the wrong swear-words yesterday...

I may have found what bulged out on your header trim, as I got mine to re-hang nice and flat against the windshield: I gave the header a little extra tug to re-seat the two hooks that point rearward into their holes in the header steel, and everything went back together neat as you please.

It may be because I only dropped one side of the header trim at a time - I dropped the passenger side just barely enough to run the RJ11 cable across to the center of the car, over the dome light, then re-seated it - I skipped pulling the A-pillar trim, and just stuffed the cable behind it by pulling the door weatherstrip. I also didn't unhook the passenger side of the header trim from the header; I just lowered the back edge enough to stuff the cable in there...

Then I reassembled the passenger-side of the header trim, and dropped the driver's side completely, as the cable's RJ11 plug emerges from the header just to the left of the center dome-light bulge, and I had to drop the forward edge of the trim to run the cable through. But I was able to re-hang it completely flat. About the only thing that gave me any grief there was re-seating the little tab on the header trim that snaps into the top of the A-pillar trim.

Anyway, it's all in place now, and looks pretty darn sexy, if I do say so myself. Thanks for the hints; it's appreciated. I'll never understand why my visors were such a PITA, though...

[John_H]

Rigger -

Thanks for the revisit and sorry I forgot about the body clips at the A frames.

So it's two front clips on each side, not one, roughly where the openings are in the trim for both ends of each visor. It turns out one clip collapsed (didn't make it into the metal slot) which may have contributed to the bow. Now that all clips are seated, I still have a little bow at the front edge against the windshield. It feels almost like the metalwork isn't flush there, having checked the seating plane underneath. But, like I said - any imperfections there are hidden by the frit around the windshield edges.

Thanks to you, I now have a snugger fit, at least! Doing one side at a time certainly helped.